Earthquakes and Fire

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“Then the earth quaked and trembled. The foundations of the mountains shook; they quaked because of his anger. Smoke poured from his nostrils; fierce flames leaped from his mouth. Glowing coals blazed forth from him.”
Psalm 18:7-8 NLT

After acknowledging that God heard David’s cries and prayers for help, David let his imagination dwell on the different ways that God could deal with the problem of his enemies. Earthquakes and fire appear in David’s poetry, themes again appearing in Isaiah, “But suddenly, your ruthless enemies will be crushed like the finest of dust. Your many attackers will be driven away like chaff before the wind. Suddenly, in an instant, I, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, will act for you with thunder and earthquake and great noise, with whirlwind and storm and consuming fire” (Isaiah 29:5-6). Earthquakes and fire are just two of God’s remedies for dealing with a sinful and wicked earth, and we’re so grateful that He is holding back His judgement. He didn’t in the case of Sodom and Gomorrah, as we read in Genesis 19:24-25, “Then the Lord rained down fire and burning sulphur from the sky on Sodom and Gomorrah. He utterly destroyed them, along with the other cities and villages of the plain, wiping out all the people and every bit of vegetation”. In case anyone thinks that the Genesis account was just mythical, evidence has been found of an ancient city destroyed by intense heat. Dating methods have placed it in the right historical period. 

Elijah too came up against earthquakes and fire, as we read in 1 Kings 19:11-12, “Go out and stand before me on the mountain,” the Lord told him. And as Elijah stood there, the Lord passed by, and a mighty windstorm hit the mountain. It was such a terrible blast that the rocks were torn loose, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake there was a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire there was the sound of a gentle whisper“. An amazing demonstration of God’s power re-confirmed Elijah’s mission. 

So what do we pilgrims think of earthquakes and fire? We know the words of Jesus in Matthew 24:7, “Nation will go to war against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in many parts of the world”, and we look around and see this happening. We might even suspect that David’s words were a prophetic message foretelling God’s judgement, but Jesus continued in the next verse, “But all this is only the first of the birth pains, with more to come“. Earthquakes were very much part of the apocalyptic vision recorded in Revelation. We read in Revelation 16:17-18, “Then the seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air. And a mighty shout came from the throne in the Temple, saying, “It is finished!” Then the thunder crashed and rolled, and lightning flashed. And a great earthquake struck—the worst since people were placed on the earth“. There was fire involved as well in the last days. Revelation 16:8, “Then the fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, causing it to scorch everyone with its fire“. 

Earthquakes and fire are considered part of God’s judgement on the evil and wicked people who have populated Planet Earth. Up until now, we read that, “The Lord is slow to anger and filled with unfailing love, forgiving every kind of sin and rebellion. But he does not excuse the guilty. … ” (Numbers 14:18a). ‭‭We are so thankful that God’s anger and judgement has been delayed because otherwise we would not be around today. As we read through Revelation we can see a series of world events that take place before the Time of the End in Revelation 20, but in Hebrews 9:27 we read, “ … each person is destined to die once and after that comes judgment“. In these days on Planet Earth we live in a season of God’s grace. The Revelation 16 times of earthquakes and fire have yet to come. David did indeed prophesy about what was to come, and we pilgrims are in a place of God’s favour and grace, which we strive to share with others.

Dear Father God. To many people their lives will not end well as they stand before You on Judgement Day. But thank You that You have entrusted us with Your message of hope. Please help us to spread the word that “Jesus saves”. Amen.

Wonderful Ways

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“I am praying to you because I know you will answer, O God. Bend down and listen as I pray. Show me your unfailing love in wonderful ways. By your mighty power you rescue those who seek refuge from their enemies.”
Psalm 17:6-7 NLT

Where was David when he was praying these verses? My imagination takes me this morning to a holy place where a lonely figure is standing in an attitude of prayer, his hands raised with a face turned upwards towards Heaven. Perhaps the figure was fearful of the threats of the warring nations around him. Perhaps he was even surrounded by his enemies who were intent on capture or death. But regardless, he was standing in the presence of the Lord God of Israel, the Creator of Heaven and earth. He was the same Lord who had parted the Red Sea and brought His people through on dry land, destroying the Egyptian army in the process. The same Lord who had miraculously fed an entire nation with something called manna for forty years. And more recently, the same Lord who had directed a pebble into the unprotected forehead of a Philistine giant, a pebble slung from a weapon carried by the lonely figure standing there in an attitude of prayer and worship. 

David would have been aware of the writings of Moses, and of God’s love for His people. Deuteronomy 10:15, “Yet the Lord chose your ancestors as the objects of his love. And he chose you, their descendants, above all other nations, as is evident today”. David knew that his Lord loved him. All those days and nights spent in the wilderness looking after his father’s sheep had assured him of God’s love. He had no doubts, and answered prayers had bolstered his knowledge of God’s love to the point that he looked to God, expecting Him to do wonderful things for him, things desperately needed because of the predicament he was in. After all, he thought, who would have expected God to do such wonderful deeds for a group of Israelite slaves many years before? 

David did not have God constrained in a box of his own making, boundaries applied through his human thinking. He had an expectation that God had some “wonderful ways” ready and waiting to be applied to David’s predicament. What was his expectation of God? A miracle on the battlefield? Another Goliath moment? Another parting of a sea of adversity as he stood on the banks of danger before it? David wasn’t specific – he just looked to God in faith, his hands raised in prayer and worship. His upturned face shining in the light of his Lord.

But here we are, pilgrims in another world. We may not be surrounded by physical threats. We may not be in a place of danger, “seek[ing] refuge from [our] enemies”. Paul wrote in Ephesians 6:12, “For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places”. God has provided for us a rich armoury of spiritual weapons, more than capable of protecting us from such enemies. We know, like David, that God loves us with a perfect and eternal love, that will never end. And He has equipped us for all that we are likely to encounter in our journey to glory. But there is a little verse that intrigues and challenges us, a verse that David knew something about many years before it was written. Paul wrote in Ephesians 3:20 (AMP), “Now to Him who is able to [carry out His purpose and] do superabundantly more than all that we dare ask or think [infinitely beyond our greatest prayers, hopes, or dreams], according to His power that is at work within us“. We pilgrims have God’s power within us through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Power just waiting to be released as God directs, and unconstrained by our human thinking. The power that parted the Red Sea. The power that fed a nation for a generation.  The power that David prayed about in his prayer for God to “show … His wonderful ways”. 

We pilgrims are a people of power through God’s Spirit within us. We sing about it in our worship services. But do we really believe it? So let us pray like David did today, for God to show us His “wonderful ways” in response to all that is happening in our lives and around us. These are times that really need a manifestation of God’s power, power to save the world in which we live.

Dear God. We sing about You “building a people of power” but we confess our lack of faith and belief in these words. Please help us, we pray, as we go about doing Your work today. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Prayerful Assurance

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“I am praying to you because I know you will answer, O God. Bend down and listen as I pray. Show me your unfailing love in wonderful ways. By your mighty power you rescue those who seek refuge from their enemies.”
Psalm 17:6-7 NLT

David expressed his assurance about his prayer life. Put simply, he prayed because he knew God would answer him. There is something about prayer that people misunderstand. We have our liturgical prayer books such as the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. Or we can soon find books of prayers overflowing with feel-good poetry. And of course we have the Psalms, a wonderful God-inspired resource written many years ago. A dignitary might write down a prayer when asked to open an assembly, and we have the time of prayers at a school assembly. But prayer has become to many a stilted and flowery statement rather than what it should be – part of conversation with God. In a human setting, two people will engage in a conversation and will talk to each other in a way that communicates their thoughts and feelings, opinions and fears. Human communication is very much a two-way process of talking and listening, as issues are discussed and even problems resolved. But somehow we struggle to communicate with God. It could be that we can’t see Him. Or because He may not respond in a way that we need Him to, so that the conversation can continue. And so we have devised a process called prayer, a one-sided verbalisation of our needs and wants that we launch into the air like paper aeroplanes in the hope that one of them will fly all the way to God’s throne and He will pick it up and answer. Some people get quite good at praying, with long monologues full of “thee’s” and “thou’s”, spontaneously spoken out in a church meeting, and afterwards they feel quite good about themselves, considering the job done. A cynical view? Perhaps, but even Jesus’ disciples struggled with prayer – it’s not a new thing that only modern believers suffer from.

Conversation with God is what prayer is really all about, and, like any other conversation, it is two-sided. David was assured of that, because he knew confidently that God answered his prayers. But what do we pilgrims expect when we pray? Are we equally as confident that God will answer our prayers?

Part of a conversation between two people is a getting-to-know-you process. The way another person responds to a question, or reacts to a statement, exposes their inner person and contributes to a relational process that either grows well, even into friendship, or it brings the conversation to a speedy end with incompatible differences. We can’t ask God direct questions about Himself, but all the information we need is contained within His Word, the Bible. And the more we read it, the more we will find out about our wonderful God.

Jesus taught about prayer in His Sermon on the Mount. We read in Matthew 6:5-6, “When you pray, don’t be like the hypocrites who love to pray publicly on street corners and in the synagogues where everyone can see them. I tell you the truth, that is all the reward they will ever get. But when you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father in private. Then your Father, who sees everything, will reward you”. Jesus continued, “When you pray, don’t babble on and on as the Gentiles do. They think their prayers are answered merely by repeating their words again and again. Don’t be like them, for your Father knows exactly what you need even before you ask him!” And then we have what we call the Lord’s Prayer, a template for praying the God way. Matthew 6: 9-13, “Pray like this: Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy. May your Kingdom come soon. May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us today the food we need, and forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us. And don’t let us yield to temptation, but rescue us from the evil one“. How many times have we recited that prayer in a church service, words that we know from memory, but what do they really mean in practice? Jesus didn’t say that His prayer was all that there was. He said “Pray like this …”. There’s worship here, gratitude, expression of needs, an appeal for God to touch earth once again, a confession of sins, and protection from evil. Not a complete list of tick boxes, but an outline to which we add our own flavour, seasoned by our relationship with God.

With regard to his prayer life, David was a simple soul. He spoke out his fears and his needs. He reminded God of His obligations. He ranted and raved at God when under duress, emotional outbursts that we wouldn’t dare repeat in case we upset God. But David knew His Lord, and could confidently say that his prayers were answered. How about us pilgrims? Are we just was confident or merely going through the motions? But one thing we do know is that at the start of the day we need to get close to God. It may not always be convenient. Some days we won’t even feel like it, preferring to have extra time in bed. But the more we spend time with God in prayer, the more we will find that he respond to our stuttering verbalisations, giving us the assurance we need in times of need. The assurance we receive from God is indeed blessed.

Dear Father God. Once again we come to You in worship and with thankful hearts. We know that You are there for us, each and every moment, leading, guiding and assuring us on every step of our pilgrimage to Heaven. Amen.

A Wonderful Inheritance

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“Lord, you alone are my inheritance, my cup of blessing. You guard all that is mine. The land you have given me is a pleasant land. What a wonderful inheritance!”
Psalm 16:5-6 NLT

A mixture of allegorical events this morning? What was David thinking about? The Israelites were indeed given a pleasant land by God, and David, as king, would have inherited its domain from the previous king, Saul. There was a time when David could even relax a bit, secure that God was looking out for him – 2 Samuel 7:1, “When King David was settled in his palace and the Lord had given him rest from all the surrounding enemies”. And we can just imagine David getting up in the morning and looking out over the land around him, feeling blessed by God’s provision. It was indeed a “wonderful inheritance” and one promised to Moses during his blazing bush encounter with God. God said to Moses, “So I have come down to rescue them from the power of the Egyptians and lead them out of Egypt into their own fertile and spacious land. It is a land flowing with milk and honey—the land where the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites now live” (Exodus 3:8). 

But David also looked to God as his spiritual inheritance. In a sense He was, and is, everyone’s inheritance – well, for believers that is. We have come to know God because of an “inheritance” granted us through His Word, the Bible, and word of mouth by faithful servants who have shared the Gospel with us. David came to know God more directly, through spending long hours with his harp and flute watching his father’s sheep. And praise welled up inside David, as he declared that God was his “cup of blessing”. 

Do we pilgrims agree with David, and similarly declare that God has indeed blessed us, and, more, is our “pleasant land”? Do we enjoy our relationship with God? Or is it something we do by rote, going through religious motions on a Sunday, our minds dwelling on the roast dinner cooking in the oven at home? I’m sure that anyone reading this today knows that they are blessed by God and they too find within them a well of praise and worship, even a hint of excitement perhaps, as they drink the cup full of God’s blessings. To a worldly person, they have no idea of the blessings that could be waiting for them if they only opened the door into a relationship with God. The demands placed upon someone today, the busyness, the emotional draining, the struggle to fund their lives – all of this conspires to blind a person’s eyes to the reality that in a corner of their lives is a gateway into a new life. A life with God. An inheritance that is theirs for the asking. The invitation to this new life can often be seen in the wayside pulpits located outside churches, or even on the side of buses. Imagine receiving a letter one day, asking you to collect your inheritance from a lawyer somewhere, but not even bothering to turn up to find out what it is. Such is the response from people today, and in the process they are missing out on the same “cup of blessing” that David enjoyed, a cup that never runs dry.

And of course we remember that the “wonderful inheritance” we enjoy is not just for this life on earth. There will be a day when we find that much of what we glimpsed and yearned for will burst into an amazing panorama of God and all that He is, in a place we call Heaven. We have an “inheritance” that is without end and without limit.

Paul wrote, “Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think” (Ephesians 3:20). We believers have the potential to do mighty things for God with the resources that He has made available to us in the “pleasant land” located just a prayer away. We might not feel we have much power, as the demands of life drain us. We might not even believe that this verse is meant for us, preferring to think that it is only there for the real saints. But Paul wrote something profound and life changing about the “inheritance” we have available to us. Let us pause and reach out to God today, even daring to believe that His “cup of blessing” is limitless and will never run dry.

Dear Father God. You are the Source of all that is good in the land where You have placed us. Thank You for the many blessings poured out upon us. Amen.

The Righteous Lord

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“But the Lord is in his holy Temple; the Lord still rules from heaven. He watches everyone closely, examining every person on earth. The Lord examines both the righteous and the wicked. He hates those who love violence. He will rain down blazing coals and burning sulphur on the wicked, punishing them with scorching winds. For the righteous Lord loves justice. The virtuous will see his face.”
Psalm 11:4-7 NLT

We hear much today about the love of God. And after all, this might be the reason why we believers first came to know the Lord. A loving and compassionate God, who sent His Son Jesus to die in our place as a punishment for our sins. What love! But some unbelieving people, with whom we share the Gospel, argue that if God is so loving then why does He allow so many bad things to happen. Such people read John 3:16 and think to themselves that surely a loving God would put a stop to the wars and strife that blights the world He loves. They read verses such as Matthew 13:42 and think surely a loving God would never send anyone to a place called hell, where unbelieving people will spend eternity in torment. And to explain away the scenes of judgement from Genesis, such as the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, or the devastation of the Flood, such people declare that this was the Old Testament and everything changed after Jesus came. But here in Psalm 11 we read David’s words about a God who punishes people. Just Old Testament? Not if we believe Hebrews 13:8, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.”

It is unfortunate that so often the presentation of the Gospel from the pulpit lacks the balance about God’s character. Preachers today are perhaps too afraid to upset anyone in case they take the huff and go to another church where God is presented in a way that fits with their own God-is-love ideology. Such “old school” preachers and teachers are often just indulged and ignored, even if they exist today. Quite what modern congregations would make of John Knox is an interesting thought but I know someone who was radically saved in the 1970’s through the ministry of a man, a retired miner, who presented hell in the Gospel context, and it had a lasting impression.

But as well as being a God of love, He is a God of righteousness and justice. David knew that, and he wrote, “[God] hates those who love violence” and “For the righteous Lord loves justice”. David visualised a scene where the wicked found themselves being rained upon by “blazing coals and burning sulphur”. Such a scene would be a nasty shock to those who never thought God would do such a thing. But David ends this Psalm with the thought that the “virtuous [upright] will see His face”. Jesus taught in Matthew 5 about righteousness. We read, “But I warn you—unless your righteousness is better than the righteousness of the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven!” (Matthew 5:20). There is only one way in which such righteousness can be achieved and that is through Jesus. By believing in Him and repenting of our sins, we will find that He has given us His perfect righteousness, and that is the only way anyone will ever be able to spend eternity in God’s presence. 

Loving Heavenly Father. We know that You are the beginning and the end and desire that everyone will be saved. We experience Your love and compassion in times of trouble and yet we understand that You hate sin and will judge everyone one day to balance the scales of justice. With that sober thought, we confess our sins before You today, grateful for Your grace and mercy, and forgiveness. Amen.

God Is Hiding

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“O Lord, why do you stand so far away? Why do you hide when I am in trouble? The wicked arrogantly hunt down the poor. Let them be caught in the evil they plan for others. For they brag about their evil desires; they praise the greedy and curse the Lord.”
Psalm 10:1-3 NLT

The Psalmist wasn’t afraid to make his complaint to God. He had no fear of a lightning bolt from Heaven because of his audacity in questioning God’s motives. But he merely expressed what we all do sometimes – where is God when the going gets tough? As we know ourselves, it is easy to praise God when the blessings flow towards us, but not so easy when we are in trouble. 

The Psalmist was reflecting on his own troubles, but he followed his questions with, once again, his observations of wicked people. How do they get away with their evil ways? Asaph, another Psalmist, expressed similar sentiments in Psalm 73. In fact, he writes that the prosperity of the wicked almost caused him to lose his faith. Psalm 73:3-5, “For I envied the proud when I saw them prosper despite their wickedness. They seem to live such painless lives; their bodies are so healthy and strong. They don’t have troubles like other people; they’re not plagued with problems like everyone else.” He continued in verse 16, “So I tried to understand why the wicked prosper. But what a difficult task it is!”‭‭ In Matthew 5:45b we read a little snippet from Jesus, that perhaps provides a reason. “ …  For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike“. It is a ludicrous thought that God would perhaps stop the sun shining on all those people who ignore Him, coming under the Psalmist’s “wicked” definition. Imagine a largely dark world punctuated by pools of sunlight as Godly people went about their business. God’s blessings of life apply to everyone, wicked or not, but the difficult thought for the Psalmists was that the wicked seem to have more than their fair share.

But back to the times of trouble. We read about what happened to Paul and Silas in Philippi. Through the name of Jesus, they had removed the power of divination from a slave girl, upsetting her masters. A riot ensued and Paul and Silas ended up severely beaten, and imprisoned with their feet in the stocks. They were in trouble, without a doubt. And then we come to Acts 16:25, “Around midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening“.  We would have thought that they would have been crying out to God, wailing their complaints and asking why He hadn’t been there for them when they were in so much trouble. They had been abused and incarcerated in a stinking jail, their backs sore, their movement severely restricted. And yet they were praising God. How could they do that? God wasn’t there for them when they needed Him, some might think. The wicked people in Philippi had imposed their vengeance. But no external act of wicked people was ever going to stop Paul and Silas praising God.

James wrote in his epistle, “Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow” (James 1:2-3). The sad thing is that becoming a Christian doesn’t mean that we won’t have to experience troubles anymore. In fact, Jesus said, ” …Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). So when the Psalmist questioned God’s motives in times of trouble and questioned why the wicked people got away with their wickedness, and when we do the same, we instead should turn to the Lord, expressing our thanks and praise. God isn’t hiding from us. He is always there when we need Him. But in those dark days when the Heavens seem like brass and our prayers don’t seem to get to God, we need to press in, worshipping and praising. We so often want to hide from God when troubles beset us. So on a Sunday morning we stay at home when we should be at church. We don’t pick up our Bibles and read His words of comfort. We stop praying. God hasn’t gone away but we have. God knows all about the wicked people who seem to prosper. He will deal with them one day if they persist in their sin. But in the mean time He provides an opportunity for them to repent and turn to Him. One day the scales of justice will be balanced but in this life we have a mission and that includes pressing through our troubles and keeping short accounts with God. Oh, and by the way, we tell the wicked about Jesus, and His saving grace.

Dear God. You had a plan for the salvation of mankind. And we deeply thank You for Jesus, Your precious Son, for forgiving us our sins. Amen.

Our Forever God

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“But the Lord reigns forever, executing judgment from his throne. He will judge the world with justice and rule the nations with fairness.”
Psalm 9:7-8 NLT

A small child’s question “Who made God?” is understandable from a natural perspective, as young minds grapple with difficult issues in life. Everything around us has been made at some time or another. Our natural world emerged in the Genesis account of creation, our material world of houses and cars and so on contains objects created by human beings. But then comes along the scientific distortions based on the largely unsubstantiated views and “research” by scientists like Darwin and others, bring confusion and contradictions, and media journalists propagate reports of a world formed a very long time ago when some geological discovery is made. But I lack the faith to believe in a world that is populated through a chance meeting of molecules many billions of years ago, or was formed by an apparent celestial explosion even further back into history. And none of these scientists have ever explained where all the matter that formed the universe came from in the first place. So a young mind, perhaps through a Sunday School lesson or teacher’s comment, and unable to make sense of the enormous amounts of data available, intuitively believes that there must be a Creator, and asks where God came from.

It may be a difficult concept to believe, but our God, the Lord, “reigns forever”. God has always been present. Jesus said in Revelation 22:13, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End“. So the answer to the small child’s question “Who made God?” is “No-one – He has always been there”. And there is something special about that knowledge, that our Creator God, the One who loves us and has graciously saved us, has always been there. And there is more – Ephesians 1:4, “Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes”. Such knowledge elevates us into Heavenly places that are unseen with our physical eyes but home to our spirits.

David also declared that God has always been there and His righteousness prevails through His judgement and fairness. And there is coming a time when He will rule the nations. We can only pray that this will happen soon, as the world around us seems to descend further and further into depths of evil and depravity. But instead of getting depressed we look up to the One who made it all. The One who created our world and populated it with human beings made in His image. The One who holds all things together – Colossians 1:17, “He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together”. By looking up we get God’s perspective and receive the assurance that He is holding back the full potential of the forces of evil.

Paul continues in Colossians 1:19-20, “For God in all his fullness was pleased to live in Christ, and through him God reconciled everything to himself. He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of Christ’s blood on the cross”. Perhaps a better question should be “How could the One who has always been there send His Son as a human being, to save us from our sins?” The answer to such a question we will never fully understand until we meet the One who made it all possible. But we are so grateful for Jesus. Perhaps John 3:16 doesn’t really fully communicate the heart of God and His love for you and me. We will never get our minds around what it must have cost Him. God wants to be involved intimately in the affairs of His creation, and in response we feel our hearts lift within us, a warm glow flushing away the thoughts of a sad and bad world. We want to shout out our praises to the One who has done it all. Jesus!

Dear God. You have always been present, because that is what eternity means. Thank You that Your love and grace is eternal and present with us today and every day. Amen.

Refusing to Repent

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“If a person does not repent, God will sharpen his sword; he will bend and string his bow. He will prepare his deadly weapons and shoot his flaming arrows.”
Psalm 7:12-13 NLT

In military language David set out the consequences for those who refuse to repent. In the context of this Psalm, repentance means turning away from wickedness. It is not just saying “sorry” and continuing in the sin. It is not even being remorseful, expressing regrets for the consequences of wickedness. True repentance means to stop doing whatever is defined as wickedness, and turning away from it, never to return. But notice, that, thankfully, God’s response to the refusal to repent is not immediate justice and punishment. David wrote that instead of using His sword of judgement, God merely starts to sharpen it. Arrows don’t appear straight away because God delays while He strung His bow. God’s “deadly weapons” are only prepared, delaying the “fiery arrows” still ready and waiting. We read in Psalm 103:8, “The Lord is compassionate and merciful, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love”. Aren’t we glad about that?

Those who have rejected God enjoy for a season the fruits of their sin and wickedness, and unfortunately some believe that the delay in their judgement doesn’t mean God is being patient with them. Instead they question if there is a God at all. Psalm 14 starts with the verse, “Only fools say in their hearts, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, and their actions are evil; not one of them does good!” But there are many atheists in the world today who deny that God, or any god for that matter,  actually exists. Men and women who exercise their right to choose, and instead carry on their lives in blissful ignorance of the judgement still to come. What will they say before their Creator, when He asks them to provide an account of their lives? How will they react when they observe their lives from God’s perspective? Regardless of their stance while alive on Planet Earth, there will come a time when they will have to acknowledge the Saviour of the world. Philippians 2:9-11, “Therefore, God elevated him to the place of highest honour and gave him the name above all other names, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue declare that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father”. Those who reject God will one day still have to declare that “Christ is Lord”, an inescapable situation for even those who refuse to repent.

Regarding us pilgrims, there is always an opportunity for use to examine ourselves. Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 13:5, “Examine yourselves to see if your faith is genuine. Test yourselves. Surely you know that Jesus Christ is among you; if not, you have failed the test of genuine faith”. David ended Psalm 139 with the verses, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life”. We pilgrims often cast around looking at others who refuse to repent and hear God sharpening His sword, getting ready to deal with them. But do we fail to hear God “preparing His deadly weapons” as far as we are concerned? Perhaps something we should all think about today.

Dear Father God. We are so grateful for Your patience and mercy. At the foot of the Cross today, we repent of our sins and ask for the strength to turn our backs on all the things that grieve You. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

The Finality of Death

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“Return, O Lord, and rescue me. Save me because of your unfailing love. For the dead do not remember you. Who can praise you from the grave?”
Psalm 6:4-5 NLT

A grim subject to write about this morning, and not one that is a popular discussion point in every day life. Death is a certainty. No-one will escape its clutches. Human beings get to a point in life when their bodies wear out and they die, and David was aware of that because he took pains to remind God of the fact. David seemed to be afraid of his enemies and prayed for rescue and salvation from death, a common prayer by anyone in fear of mortal danger. News is coming in this morning of a plane crash in South Korea with many deaths resulting. Those people would have cried out to God for rescue, whether they knew Him or not. But most people (over 90%) die peacefully in their sleep, having fulfilled their “three score years and ten” or even more if they have the strength. 

David reminded God that dead people cannot praise Him, and that is the issue. We have a short span of life available to us during which we can offer God our praise and worship. A time when we can communicate with Him, thank Him, love Him, serve Him and enjoy Him, as the Westminster Catechism records. But inevitably there will come a time when this opportunity will pass. As we read the Davidic Psalms, we can see that David had a relationship with God, birthed in the long hours while he watched his father’s sheep. Times when he praised and worshipped God with his harp, finding the sweet spot of relational bliss with his Creator. He knew that God loved him. He knew that God supplied his needs, and he knew that he could communicate directly through his prayers and conversation with his Lord. But in this moment of crisis, he appeared to be facing into death, and was appealing to God for rescue. 

We know that there comes a time when our physical bodies die and are disposed of as being of no further use to us. Most people think that there is something going to happen after we die, and there are some strange theories about what that is. We have incarnation, where we return in a different body. Some believe that everyone goes to a place they call Heaven. Others believe that when people die they enter a period of blackness, the ultimate finality. But the Bible tells us that when we die, our spirits live on and end up in a holding place we call Heaven or hell. Jesus told a story about the Rich Man and Lazarus in Luke 16, and from the conversation Jesus had with the adjacent penitent thief at Calvary, we know that there is a place called paradise awaiting us. So the question facing into mankind is, without exception, “Where will your spirit go after you die?” We pilgrims have made the right choice, because we are children of God. But what about those around us, who perhaps have yet to make a decision, and for whom the clock is ticking? In Acts 2:40 we read, “Then Peter continued preaching for a long time, strongly urging all his listeners, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation!”” And these words still reverberate today, as we repeat them to the lost and dying around us. The most important choice that a human being can make is about their post-death future. 

Dear Father God, please lead us to those who are open to Your Gospel, and are waiting for someone to share what You have done for us. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Our Patient God

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“My enemies cannot speak a truthful word. Their deepest desire is to destroy others. Their talk is foul, like the stench from an open grave. Their tongues are filled with flattery. O God, declare them guilty. Let them be caught in their own traps. Drive them away because of their many sins, for they have rebelled against you.”
Psalm 5:9-10 NLT

David returns to thoughts about his enemies. David has little positive to say about them and, reading these verses, we get the impression that he thinks that God should feel the same way as he does. So, after David points out all the bad things that his enemies do, he asks God to do something about it. “Declare them guilty” and “Drive them away”, he asks. But does God answer his petitions? Straight away? Right at that moment?

That’s the thing about God – His patience. And aren’t we glad that He was patient with us, during those times when we were wayward and guilty of rebellion against God through our sins. On Mount Sinai, Moses encountered God, and his account includes, “The Lord passed in front of Moses, calling out, “Yahweh! The Lord! The God of compassion and mercy! I am slow to anger and filled with unfailing love and faithfulness” (Exodus 34:6). God will always give His enemies time to come to their senses, because He is patient with them and slow to get angry. He never wants anyone to perish in their sins. But impatient David wanted immediate action from His powerful God. 

Isn’t that the same with us pilgrims? We encounter many injustices in our journeys through life and want God to sort them out. The scandals of homelessness, drugs, addictions, wars, poverty – the list seems endless. “Come on, God, sort them out” we cry. But Heaven is silent and nothing happens. The scandals continue, or so it seems. But then we pause for a moment and reflect on the fact that God is holding back a tide of evil and wickedness that would more than overwhelm the problems we see in life. Of course there is much happening in this world that one day will have to be judged. But God is patient. He is aware of the injustices happening before Him. But He also has allowed mankind to make their choices, and one day everyone will be called to account for the things they have done. 

David spent much time in God’s company and he learned to trust Him in all the situations he encountered. We pilgrims must also trust God, having the faith that He knows best and one day will balance the scales. So, we pray about situations we encounter, we act as God directs, and we wait for the salvation of the Lord to be manifested in what is before us. 

Dear Father God. Thank You that You have this world in Your hands. We pray that You will help us see what is happening around us through Your eyes, each and every day. In Jesus’ name. Amen.