Robert J. Morgan's Blog, page 14

Whatever Happens, Give!

The Story Behind the Book of Philippians

Introduction: Warner Davis was a missionary kid who came to the States to enroll at Asbury University. He needed $200 for tuition. He went door to door, trying to sell cookware, but didn’t have much success. One morning, he prayed, “Lord, if you bless me financially this week, I promise I’ll give ten percent of my income to the church.” By Saturday, he had made $250, but he forgot about his promise. On Sunday morning the Lord reminded him and Warner quickly sat down and wrote a check for $10. Then he tore it up and wrote another for $15. Then the tore that up and wrote one for $25.

On that particular Sunday two visitors showed up. As they left, they handed Warner an envelope. It contained a personal gift for $25—the exact amount he had put in the offering plate. They explained they had long followed his father’s missionary work and they felt an impulse to show their appreciation by giving something to his son. That lesson stayed with Warner Davis all this life. Never again, he said, did he have to try three times to write a check to the Lord before he got the right amount. We can trace that lesson back to the Philippians.

Background: Whenever you study a book in the Bible, it’s helpful to find the facts surrounding it. Paul planted three important churches in Macedonia—in Philippi, Thessalonica, and Berea. The church in Philippi met in the home of their first convert, Lydia, who was wealthy. She opened her home to the whole church. That set the tone for the church’s generosity.

Two entire chapters of 2 Corinthians are devoted to this. Look at 2 Corinthians 8:1-5:

8  And now, brothers and sisters, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches.  2  In the midst of a very severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity.  3  For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability. Entirely on their own,  4  they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the Lord’s people.  5  And they exceeded our expectations: They gave themselves first of all to the Lord, and then by the will of God also to us.

On this occasion, Paul was collecting funds for the poverty-stricken church of Judea. The Macedonian churches understood the concept of giving to the Lord better than anyone else. God had given them the grace of giving. Paul collected this offering and took it to Jerusalem in Acts 21. But his presence there sparked a riot. He was sent to prison in Caesarea and then in Rome. When the Philippians heard this, they were alarmed and asked themselves, “What can we do? How can we help him?” 

They took up yet another offering and one of the church members—Epaphroditus—said, “I’ll take it and stay with Paul and take care of him.” After prayers and goodbyes, Epaphroditus left Philippi for the trip to Rome, which would have taken over a month on the Ignatian Way. Once there, he tracked down Paul, gave him the money, and stayed with him. But Epaphroditus became deathly sick, and instead of taking care of Paul, Paul had to take care of him. When Epaphroditus recovered, Paul sent him back to Philippi with a letter of friendship and gratitude—our letter to the Philippians. Look at Philippians 2:25-30:

25 But I think it is necessary to send back to you Epaphroditus, my brother, co-worker and fellow soldier, who is also your messenger, whom you sent to take care of my needs. 26 For he longs for all of you and is distressed because you heard he was ill. 27 Indeed he was ill, and almost died. But God had mercy on him, and not on him only but also on me, to spare me sorrow upon sorrow. 28 Therefore I am all the more eager to send him, so that when you see him again you may be glad and I may have less anxiety. 29 So then, welcome him in the Lord with great joy, and honor people like him, 30 because he almost died for the work of Christ. He risked his life to make up for the help you yourselves could not give me.

The Philippian Impact on History 

What can we learn from this? Whatever happens, keep on giving. Stay generous. Support the expansion of the Kingdom of Christ around the world. In all of the New Testament, the church in Philippi and its fellow churches of Macedonia were the Bible’s prime examples of missionary giving. I can go so far as to say their example has impacted the generosity of the church through the ages, which has impacted the world economy in ways greater than we know.

Chuck Bentley is the head of Crown Financial Ministries. One day several years ago, he read in the Wall Street Journal about a Chinese economist named Zhao Xiao, which, Americanized is, Dr. Peter Zhao (prounced Zow). He was a rising star in the Communist party and the Chinese authorities asked him to determine why America had the strongest economy. They wanted to figure out the secret of America’s success and leverage it.

Dr. Zhao came up with one basic conclusion. American was founded on Judeo-Christian principles, and that biblical basis provided a tireless work ethic, a sense of honesty, a suppression of corruption, a motivation for excellence, a creative spirit, and a deep belief in generosity. He said, “The strong U.S. economy is just on the surface. The backbone is the moral foundation.” Dr. Zhao wrote over 200 articles about this.

Later Chuck was at a financial conference where he met Dr. Zhao. The Chinese economist had become a personal follower of Jesus Christ. Chuck said: 

Churches that teach God’s Word have an incalculable but profoundly positive impact on individuals and thus a nation’s economy.

Two things provide a snapshot of the health and future of a nation: the number of healthy Bible believing churches and the number of entrepreneurs that are free to pursue their dream. Dr. Zhao was right; China needs God. But not just China; every pastor needs to understand they are creating “good economic actors” with the values, the character and creative spirit that builds a personal economy, and in turn contributes to the collective economic health of a nation.

Application

Let’s end by revisiting 2 Corinthians 8:1-5 and draw out three lessons.

First, ask God to give the grace of giving. Our desire to support the cause of Christ financially is the outworking of God’s grace in our lives. Verse 1 says: Now brothers and sisters, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. He was speaking of their generous attitude. I’ve found—and this is after 70 years of working on it—whenever I receive a paycheck of some sort, my first thought is how I can use a proportion of it to support the Lord’s work. I love this feeling. It’s simply grace. Ask God to give you the grace of giving.

Second, give as God leads despite the circumstances. Verse 2: In the midst of a very severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity. Think of a spring in which the water rises to the surface by itself and wells up to overflowing. I have some little water fountains at home, and when I plug them in the pump begins to force the water up the pipes and tubes. Suddenly I see it at the top welling up and starting to run over the rocks or the saucers.

Well, what’s beneath the surface? It’s a three-fold pump: Severe trials; overflowing joy; extreme poverty.

Apparently some kind of opposition had befallen the churches in Macedonia, and it made them realize their temporary possessions were not as important as their eternal riches. In the midst of this God gave them joy. Though they were poor, the Lord provided something special for them to give. It welled up into rich generosity. 

Third, offer the totality of your life—not just all you have, but all you are or ever hope to be—to the Lord. Verses 4 through 5: For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability. Entirely on their own, they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the Lord’s people. And they exceeded our expectations: They gave themselves first of all to the Lord, and then by the will of God also to us.

Give yourself first to the Lord! Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and all these other things will be added to you as well.

Conclusion: In your mind’s eye, travel to Lydia’s expansive house. Go through the gate and into the foyer. It’s a pleasant evening, so let’s meet in the courtyard. Chairs are set up. Here are servants with refreshments. Here’s someone to lead singing. Here’s someone to take up the offering. This is a generous, singing, worshipping church, founded by Paul, overseen by Luke, and growing by the day. The jailer and his family are present, and the servant girl has brought some friends. The crowd is growing.

This particular meeting is special. Epaphroditus, who has been gone most of a year, is back, sitting in the corner. He has come from Rome. He has come from Paul. If we’d have arrived a bit earlier we could have spoken to him before the service; but we did see him give the pastor a little parchment scroll, and we already suspect it’s a letter from Paul, which Epaphroditus had brought back with him.

Everyone sits in rapt attention to hear the news from their beloved friend and missionary. The pastor stands, unrolls it, and says: “Friends! We have news from Paul. I’ll just read it to you. He writes, ‘Paul and Timothy, servants of Jesus Christ, to all God’s holy people in Christ Jesus at Philippi, together with the overseers and deacons. Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ….’”

The post Whatever Happens, Give! appeared first on RobertJMorgan.com.

Whatever Happens, Sing at Midnight! (Part A)

Introduction

Only a few people still read missionary biographies and autobiographies, but I’m one of them. They are full of the most remarkable stories and most breathtaking narratives you’ll ever encounter. This week I read the autobiography of Anna Kay Scott, who joined her husband, Edward Payson Scott, and went to a remote area of northeastern India. Nearby there was an ethnic group known as the Naga people, and they were exceedingly dangerous. Edward determined to venture into the area and take them the Gospel. At that time, India was under British control, and the governing officers begged him to abandon his plans. They said no British officer had been able to enter that area. They said that a young Naga warrior who wanted to marry had to show thirty sculls of human beings before he was considered brave enough to protect a wife.

The Naga warriors carried long spears that were poisoned at the tips.

But Edward Payson Scott was undeterred. He felt a compulsion to go. He took two things with him—his Bible and his violin. As he entered the Naga area, he had to pass through a narrow chasm, and suddenly he found himself surrounded by twelve warriors, each one holding a spear pointed directly at his heart.

He stopped, opened his violin case, and began playing a beloved hymn. There are several different accounts as to which hymn is was, and perhaps he, in fact, played several hymns. But in her autobiography, his wife said it was Isaac Watts’ great hymn: “Am I a soldier of the cross, and follower of the lamb? And shall I fear to own His cause or blush to speak His name?”

The warriors were mesmerized by the incredible sound of this violin. One by one, they dropped their spears and begged him to continue playing. Then they said, “You may come and stay among us as long as you bring that violin with you.” Edward went into their area, singing and playing and preaching, and many of that tribe came to Christ.

There is a special power to psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs that defies explanation. That’s why I want to speak on the subject: “Whatever Happens, Sing!” 

Let’s consider, for example, what happened in the Roman city of Philippi in New Testament days.

Background

In Acts 16, Paul and his assistant, Silas, started out on a missionary tour across Asia Minor, which is essentially modern-day Turkey. They were soon joined by a teenager named Timothy, and the three of them wanted to preach the Gospel wherever they could. But all the doors were closed to them for about a thousand miles until they finally got to the western-most city of Troas. That’s where Paul had a vision from a man in northern Greece begging him, “Come over to Macedonia and help us!”

Immediately Luke joined them and they booked passage across the Aegean Sea and went to the great city of Philippi. Now, I’ve visited Roman ruins in many great cities throughout Europe and the Middle East, but I’ve not yet been to Philippi. I’ve studied pictures of the archaeological sites there and it was a remarkable city, a huge city, a city with columns and a vast outdoor theater, and marketplaces, and colonnaded streets.

Let’s read the story of what happened there.

Scripture

11  From Troas we put out to sea and sailed straight for Samothrace, and the next day we went on to Neapolis. 12  From there we traveled to Philippi, a Roman colony and the leading city of that district of Macedonia. And we stayed there several days.

13  On the Sabbath we went outside the city gate to the river, where we expected to find a place of prayer. We sat down and began to speak to the women who had gathered there.  14  One of those listening was a woman from the city of Thyatira named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth. 

In his writings, Luke took pains to point out the role of wealthy women in the spread of the Gospel. In Luke 8, he listed the wealthy women of Galilee who supported the Lord’s ministry. In Acts 8, he described the mother of John Mark, who had a large home and servants for the entertaining of Christians. Later he’s going to talk about Priscilla. Here in Philippi we meet another such woman—Lydia.  She dealt in purple fabrics. If we could visit her booth in the Philippians marketplace, we would have been wide-eyed at her luxurious fabrics and colors. 

In 2021, archaeologists in Israel announced the discovery of fragments of purple fabric that date back to the reigns of David and Solomon. They tell us the color purple was drawn from certain creatures of the sea, and creating this color of dye was extremely rare and expensive. Lydia’s home city of Thyatira was famous for its production of this cloth, so apparently Lydia exported it to Philippi and had a thriving business. Verse 14 also says:

She was a worshiper of God. 

This likely means she was a Gentile who had adopted the Jewish religion in her attempt to become closer to the Lord. It’s often thought that the Jewish population of Philippi was too small for a synagogue so the handful of Jews and Gentile propylites had a meeting place by the river. Paul, Silas, Timothy, and Luke showed up there, and Paul explained his message of the coming of the Messiah. Verse 14 continues:

The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message.  15  When she and the members of her household were baptized, she invited us to her home. “If you consider me a believer in the Lord,” she said, “come and stay at my house.” And she persuaded us.

Lydia, then, became Paul’s first convert in Europe and her house became the meeting place for the church that was starting to form in this vast city. Now, some time passes as Paul and his companions seek to share the Gospel with others. And then we have this incident:

16  Once when we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a female slave who had a spirit by which she predicted the future. She earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune-telling.  17  She followed Paul and the rest of us, shouting, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved.”  18  She kept this up for many days. Finally Paul became so annoyed that he turned around and said to the spirit, “In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!” At that moment the spirit left her.

This servant girl became the second known convert. Two women had been saved—and they were at different ends of the social continuum. Lydia was a wealthy business owner and the slave girl was human traffic. But they became sisters in Christ and Paul’s first two known converts in Europe.

The deliverance and conversion of the slave girl triggered a violent reaction.

19  When her owners realized that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to face the authorities.  20  They brought them before the magistrates and said, “These men are Jews, and are throwing our city into an uproar  21  by advocating customs unlawful for us Romans to accept or practice.”

22  The crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas, and the magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten with rods.  23  After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully.   24  When he received these orders, he put them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.

It’s impossible to imagine how painful this kind of beating would be. In the classic Civil Rights book, Twelve Years a Slave, a man named Solomon Northup was seized and forced into slavery. He said when he was being whipped that he thought he would die, that his whole body was on fire. We assume the rods badly bruised or cut through the skin, because later the text talks about their wounds. Thankfully, young Timothy and Doctor Luke avoided the beating, but Paul and Silas were taken, disrobed and battered, to the prison where they were placed in stocks, which probably means their hands were stretched above their heads and their feet fastened on the other end. Whether they were vertical or horizonal, we don’t know.

But now we come to one of the most remarkable scenes in the book of Acts.

25  About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. 

That’s the verse I want to come back to. But first let’s get the rest of the story.

26  Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everyone’s chains came loose.  27  The jailer woke up, and when he saw the prison doors open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself because he thought the prisoners had escaped.  28  But Paul shouted, “Don’t harm yourself! We are all here!”

29  The jailer called for lights, rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas.  30  He then brought them out and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” 31  They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household.” 

32  Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all the others in his house.  33  At that hour of the night the jailer took them and washed their wounds; then immediately he and all his household were baptized.  34  The jailer brought them into his house and set a meal before them; he was filled with joy because he had come to believe in God—he and his whole household.

And so the church continued to grow at great cost. Had you or I been able to attend a Sunday service, we would have seen Lydia and her household, a slave girl, and a jailer and his family. Luke takes quite a bit of time to tell us about the founding of the church in Philippi, but the one truth I want to underscore is this—whatever happens, sing!

Thesis

Let me expand on that, because this is a spiritual principle and a devotional discipline that has almost been lost to us—really, for the first time since the Reformation. Notice the setting. Paul and Silas were in throbbing pain, immobilized, and in total darkness. And yet, they were singing at midnight. That can only mean one thing. They both had the words – the lyrics – of psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs in the minds. They didn’t have a hymnbook with them, and there were no words projected on the walls of the prison. They sang from memory. They had an internalized hymnbook in their heads. 

I’m sure this came from the Jewish heritage. I do not know if every Jew memorized each of the 150 Psalms or not. But every practicing Jew knew very many of them by heart. They sang them in the synagogues and they sang them at the temple and they sang them as they traveled to their festivals and they sang them in their private devotions. We’re told Jesus and His disciples sang a hymn during the Last Supper. 

Here is my thesis: Apart from memorized Scripture, there is nothing more crucial to your emotional and spiritual well-being than having in your brain a selection of memorized psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.

That is biblical.

Colossians 3:16 says: Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.

That implies the Word of Christ is filling your mind, and the songs of Christ are filling your heart.

And here’s the thing. We can memorize songs more easily and quickly than we memorize Scripture.

When our girls were all very small we taught them the alphabet very easily with a little song. A, B, C, D, E, F, G…. I don’t know how long it would have taken to have taught them 26 different unrelated syllables by rote, but they learned that song very quickly.

Now, a good hymn or praise song is a miniature Bible study, versified and set to music. That’s in essence what the book of Psalms is. David, who was both a theologian and a musician, studied the Torah—the first five books of Moses. That was, for all practical purposes, his Bible. He read it over and over, and he meditated day and night on Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. 

From his meditations, he created little Bible studies, versified with parallelism, and set them to music. Many of them reflected episodes in his own life that had inspired the music. He was applying Scripture to life, and turning it into songs. 

That became the book of Psalms, and the Hebrews memorized some or most or all of them. They could learn Psalm 23 by singing it much easier than they could memorize, say, Deuteronomy 4.

So from this heritage, Paul and Silas had a treasure trove of devotional material in their minds and hearts, and at the midnight hour it spilled out in singing. Paul was a Hebraic Jew and Silas was a Hellenistic Jew, but they both knew how to sing in the night and they had the songs already in their minds and hearts.

What would Paul have sung? Let’s look at some possibilities. I don’t know how the music would have sounded, but we do have the lyrics.

Psalm 18: 

I love you,  Lord , my strength.

2  The  Lord  is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer;
    my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge,
    my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.

3  I called to the  Lord , who is worthy of praise,
    and I have been saved from my enemies.
4  The cords of death entangled me;
    the torrents of destruction overwhelmed me.
5  The cords of the grave coiled around me;
    the snares of death confronted me.

Now, listen to this:

6  In my distress I called to the  Lord ;
    I cried to my God for help.
From his temple he heard my voice;
    my cry came before him, into his ears.
7  The earth trembled and quaked,
    and the foundations of the mountains shook;

Imagine—just imagine—if this was their selection when Paul Silas got to this point in singing Psalm 18, it actually happened. They called on the Lord in their distress in verse 6. And just as they sang verse 7, an earthquake shook the jail. The earth trembled and quaked, and the prison doors were jarred open.

Here’s another possibility.

Psalm 27:

The  Lord  is my light and my salvation—
    whom shall I fear?

Remember they were in total darkness.

The  Lord  is the stronghold of my life—
    of whom shall I be afraid?

2  When the wicked advance against me
    to devour me,
it is my enemies and my foes
    who will stumble and fall.
3  Though an army besiege me,
    my heart will not fear;
though war break out against me,
    even then I will be confident.

4  One thing I ask from the  Lord ,
    this only do I seek:
that I may dwell in the house of the  Lord
    all the days of my life,

Or check out Psalm 68:

Psalm 68

Sing to God, sing in praise of his name,
    extol him who rides on the clouds;
    rejoice before him—his name is the  Lord .
5  A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows,
    is God in his holy dwelling.
6  God sets the lonely in families,
    he leads out the prisoners with singing;

That’s literally what happened to Paul and Silas. God in His Holy Dwelling led them out of the prison through singing. Or I think they may have sung Psalm 129. Listen to these words:

Psalm 129

1  “They have greatly oppressed me from my youth,”
    let Israel say;
2  “they have greatly oppressed me from my youth,
    but they have not gained the victory over me.
3  Plowmen have plowed my back
    and made their furrows long.
4  But the  Lord  is righteous;
    he has cut me free from the cords of the wicked.”

The rods had plowed across their back with long furrows, but the enemy did not gain the victory.

My point is this: In the Bible, in the history of hymnody, and in our modern songs, God has given us the gift of music with lyrics for whatever we face in life. But we need our own internalized set of psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.

Apart from memorized Scripture, there is nothing more crucial to your emotional and spiritual well-being than having in your brain a selection of memorized psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.

Colossians 3:16 again: Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.

That implies the Word of Christ is filling in your mind, and the songs of Christ are filling your heart, which allows you to sing in the midnight hours of life.

I began with a missionary story, so let me close with one. I’ve just finished reading the story of Walter and Aliene Hunt, who were missionaries to the Philippines. They served there with great fruitfulness for many years, and then the Lord lead them back to the United States where they served Him faithfully for several more years.

One day in 1978, Walter and Aliene learned the International Church in Manila needed a pastor. At first, they resisted the thought. Walter was engaged in a stateside ministry, and Aliene had just begun a counseling ministry. Frankly, they didn’t want to go at first, but they felt a tug from the Holy Spirit.

One day, Aliene was driving on a Texas highway, and a song came to her mind with tremendous force: “All to Jesus, I surrender; all to Him I freely give. I will ever love and trust Him, in His presence daily live. I surrender all, I surrender all. All to Thee my blessed Savior, I surrender all.”

At that moment, she had total peace, joy, confidence, anticipation, and excitement. ‘OK, Lord, I will go,” she said. And they began preparing for their next stage of life and ministry.

When we have newer music and classic hymns stored away in our hearts, the Lord has a way of using it almost like memorized Scripture. So I’d like to suggest you select a song you like—new or old—and sing it enough to get the lyrics into your short-term and then into your long-term memory. It’s a practice now missing from most of the American church, but we can revive it.

I’ll have more about this next week. In the meantime, check out my course, Save, Sing, and Share the Hymns on the courses page of my website…

Thanks for digging into the riches of the Bible with me. 

This episode was produced by Joshua Rowe and the marketing company Clearly Media

Audio editing by Jared BrummetPrint editing and blog posting by Sherry Anderson, Luke Tyler, and Carson OutlawMusic by Jordan Davis and Elijah RoweLook for the transcript of this podcast soon on the blog page at my website, robertjmorgan.com, where you’ll also find many other resources.

Thanks for listening, and may God be with you until we meet again.

The post Whatever Happens, Sing at Midnight! (Part A) appeared first on RobertJMorgan.com.

Whatever Happens, Sing at Midnight!

Part 1

Introduction

Only a few people still read missionary biographies and autobiographies, but I’m one of them. They are full of the most remarkable stories and most breathtaking narratives you’ll ever encounter. This week I read the autobiography of Anna Kay Scott, who joined her husband, Edward Payson Scott, and went to a remote area of northeastern India. Nearby there was an ethnic group known as the Naga people, and they were exceedingly dangerous. Edward determined to venture into the area and take them the Gospel. At that time, India was under British control, and the governing officers begged him to abandon his plans. They said no British officer had been able to enter that area. They said that a young Naga warrior who wanted to marry had to show thirty sculls of human beings before he was considered brave enough to protect a wife.

The Naga warriors carried long spears that were poisoned at the tips.

But Edward Payson Scott was undeterred. He felt a compulsion to go. He took two things with him—his Bible and his violin. As he entered the Naga area, he had to pass through a narrow chasm, and suddenly he found himself surrounded by twelve warriors, each one holding a spear pointed directly at his heart.

He stopped, opened his violin case, and began playing a beloved hymn. There are several different accounts as to which hymn is was, and perhaps he, in fact, played several hymns. But in her autobiography, his wife said it was Isaac Watts’ great hymn: “Am I a soldier of the cross, and follower of the lamb? And shall I fear to own His cause or blush to speak His name?”

The warriors were mesmerized by the incredible sound of this violin. One by one, they dropped their spears and begged him to continue playing. Then they said, “You may come and stay among us as long as you bring that violin with you.” Edward went into their area, singing and playing and preaching, and many of that tribe came to Christ.

There is a special power to psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs that defies explanation. That’s why I want to speak on the subject: “Whatever Happens, Sing!” 

Let’s consider, for example, what happened in the Roman city of Philippi in New Testament days.

Background

In Acts 16, Paul and his assistant, Silas, started out on a missionary tour across Asia Minor, which is essentially modern-day Turkey. They were soon joined by a teenager named Timothy, and the three of them wanted to preach the Gospel wherever they could. But all the doors were closed to them for about a thousand miles until they finally got to the western-most city of Troas. That’s where Paul had a vision from a man in northern Greece begging him, “Come over to Macedonia and help us!”

Immediately Luke joined them and they booked passage across the Aegean Sea and went to the great city of Philippi. Now, I’ve visited Roman ruins in many great cities throughout Europe and the Middle East, but I’ve not yet been to Philippi. I’ve studied pictures of the archaeological sites there and it was a remarkable city, a huge city, a city with columns and a vast outdoor theater, and marketplaces, and colonnaded streets.

Let’s read the story of what happened there.

Scripture

11  From Troas we put out to sea and sailed straight for Samothrace, and the next day we went on to Neapolis. 12  From there we traveled to Philippi, a Roman colony and the leading city of that district of Macedonia. And we stayed there several days.

13  On the Sabbath we went outside the city gate to the river, where we expected to find a place of prayer. We sat down and began to speak to the women who had gathered there.  14  One of those listening was a woman from the city of Thyatira named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth. 

In his writings, Luke took pains to point out the role of wealthy women in the spread of the Gospel. In Luke 8, he listed the wealthy women of Galilee who supported the Lord’s ministry. In Acts 8, he described the mother of John Mark, who had a large home and servants for the entertaining of Christians. Later he’s going to talk about Priscilla. Here in Philippi we meet another such woman—Lydia.  She dealt in purple fabrics. If we could visit her booth in the Philippians marketplace, we would have been wide-eyed at her luxurious fabrics and colors. 

In 2021, archaeologists in Israel announced the discovery of fragments of purple fabric that date back to the reigns of David and Solomon. They tell us the color purple was drawn from certain creatures of the sea, and creating this color of dye was extremely rare and expensive. Lydia’s home city of Thyatira was famous for its production of this cloth, so apparently Lydia exported it to Philippi and had a thriving business. Verse 14 also says:

She was a worshiper of God. 

This likely means she was a Gentile who had adopted the Jewish religion in her attempt to become closer to the Lord. It’s often thought that the Jewish population of Philippi was too small for a synagogue so the handful of Jews and Gentile propylites had a meeting place by the river. Paul, Silas, Timothy, and Luke showed up there, and Paul explained his message of the coming of the Messiah. Verse 14 continues:

The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message.  15  When she and the members of her household were baptized, she invited us to her home. “If you consider me a believer in the Lord,” she said, “come and stay at my house.” And she persuaded us.

Lydia, then, became Paul’s first convert in Europe and her house became the meeting place for the church that was starting to form in this vast city. Now, some time passes as Paul and his companions seek to share the Gospel with others. And then we have this incident:

16  Once when we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a female slave who had a spirit by which she predicted the future. She earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune-telling.  17  She followed Paul and the rest of us, shouting, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved.”  18  She kept this up for many days. Finally Paul became so annoyed that he turned around and said to the spirit, “In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!” At that moment the spirit left her.

This servant girl became the second known convert. Two women had been saved—and they were at different ends of the social continuum. Lydia was a wealthy business owner and the slave girl was human traffic. But they became sisters in Christ and Paul’s first two known converts in Europe.

The deliverance and conversion of the slave girl triggered a violent reaction.

19  When her owners realized that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to face the authorities.  20  They brought them before the magistrates and said, “These men are Jews, and are throwing our city into an uproar  21  by advocating customs unlawful for us Romans to accept or practice.”

22  The crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas, and the magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten with rods.  23  After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully.   24  When he received these orders, he put them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.

It’s impossible to imagine how painful this kind of beating would be. In the classic Civil Rights book, Twelve Years a Slave, a man named Solomon Northup was seized and forced into slavery. He said when he was being whipped that he thought he would die, that his whole body was on fire. We assume the rods badly bruised or cut through the skin, because later the text talks about their wounds. Thankfully, young Timothy and Doctor Luke avoided the beating, but Paul and Silas were taken, disrobed and battered, to the prison where they were placed in stocks, which probably means their hands were stretched above their heads and their feet fastened on the other end. Whether they were vertical or horizonal, we don’t know.

But now we come to one of the most remarkable scenes in the book of Acts.

25  About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. 

That’s the verse I want to come back to. But first let’s get the rest of the story.

26  Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everyone’s chains came loose.  27  The jailer woke up, and when he saw the prison doors open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself because he thought the prisoners had escaped.  28  But Paul shouted, “Don’t harm yourself! We are all here!”

29  The jailer called for lights, rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas.  30  He then brought them out and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” 31  They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household.” 

32  Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all the others in his house.  33  At that hour of the night the jailer took them and washed their wounds; then immediately he and all his household were baptized.  34  The jailer brought them into his house and set a meal before them; he was filled with joy because he had come to believe in God—he and his whole household.

And so the church continued to grow at great cost. Had you or I been able to attend a Sunday service, we would have seen Lydia and her household, a slave girl, and a jailer and his family. Luke takes quite a bit of time to tell us about the founding of the church in Philippi, but the one truth I want to underscore is this—whatever happens, sing!

Thesis

Let me expand on that, because this is a spiritual principle and a devotional discipline that has almost been lost to us—really, for the first time since the Reformation. Notice the setting. Paul and Silas were in throbbing pain, immobilized, and in total darkness. And yet, they were singing at midnight. That can only mean one thing. They both had the words – the lyrics – of psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs in the minds. They didn’t have a hymnbook with them, and there were no words projected on the walls of the prison. They sang from memory. They had an internalized hymnbook in their heads. 

I’m sure this came from the Jewish heritage. I do not know if every Jew memorized each of the 150 Psalms or not. But every practicing Jew knew very many of them by heart. They sang them in the synagogues and they sang them at the temple and they sang them as they traveled to their festivals and they sang them in their private devotions. We’re told Jesus and His disciples sang a hymn during the Last Supper. 

Here is my thesis: Apart from memorized Scripture, there is nothing more crucial to your emotional and spiritual well-being than having in your brain a selection of memorized psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.

That is biblical.

Colossians 3:16 says: Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.

That implies the Word of Christ is filling your mind, and the songs of Christ are filling your heart.

And here’s the thing. We can memorize songs more easily and quickly than we memorize Scripture.

When our girls were all very small we taught them the alphabet very easily with a little song. A, B, C, D, E, F, G…. I don’t know how long it would have taken to have taught them 26 different unrelated syllables by rote, but they learned that song very quickly.

Now, a good hymn or praise song is a miniature Bible study, versified and set to music. That’s in essence what the book of Psalms is. David, who was both a theologian and a musician, studied the Torah—the first five books of Moses. That was, for all practical purposes, his Bible. He read it over and over, and he meditated day and night on Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. 

From his meditations, he created little Bible studies, versified with parallelism, and set them to music. Many of them reflected episodes in his own life that had inspired the music. He was applying Scripture to life, and turning it into songs. 

That became the book of Psalms, and the Hebrews memorized some or most or all of them. They could learn Psalm 23 by singing it much easier than they could memorize, say, Deuteronomy 4.

So from this heritage, Paul and Silas had a treasure trove of devotional material in their minds and hearts, and at the midnight hour it spilled out in singing. Paul was a Hebraic Jew and Silas was a Hellenistic Jew, but they both knew how to sing in the night and they had the songs already in their minds and hearts.

What would Paul have sung? Let’s look at some possibilities. I don’t know how the music would have sounded, but we do have the lyrics.

Psalm 18: 

I love you,  Lord , my strength.

2  The  Lord  is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer;
    my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge,
    my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.

3  I called to the  Lord , who is worthy of praise,
    and I have been saved from my enemies.
4  The cords of death entangled me;
    the torrents of destruction overwhelmed me.
5  The cords of the grave coiled around me;
    the snares of death confronted me.

Now, listen to this:

6  In my distress I called to the  Lord ;
    I cried to my God for help.
From his temple he heard my voice;
    my cry came before him, into his ears.
7  The earth trembled and quaked,
    and the foundations of the mountains shook;

Imagine—just imagine—if this was their selection when Paul Silas got to this point in singing Psalm 18, it actually happened. They called on the Lord in their distress in verse 6. And just as they sang verse 7, an earthquake shook the jail. The earth trembled and quaked, and the prison doors were jarred open.

Here’s another possibility.

Psalm 27:

The  Lord  is my light and my salvation—
    whom shall I fear?

Remember they were in total darkness.

The  Lord  is the stronghold of my life—
    of whom shall I be afraid?

2  When the wicked advance against me
    to devour me,
it is my enemies and my foes
    who will stumble and fall.
3  Though an army besiege me,
    my heart will not fear;
though war break out against me,
    even then I will be confident.

4  One thing I ask from the  Lord ,
    this only do I seek:
that I may dwell in the house of the  Lord
    all the days of my life,

Or check out Psalm 68:

Psalm 68

Sing to God, sing in praise of his name,
    extol him who rides on the clouds;
    rejoice before him—his name is the  Lord .
5  A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows,
    is God in his holy dwelling.
6  God sets the lonely in families,
    he leads out the prisoners with singing;

That’s literally what happened to Paul and Silas. God in His Holy Dwelling led them out of the prison through singing. Or I think they may have sung Psalm 129. Listen to these words:

Psalm 129

1  “They have greatly oppressed me from my youth,”
    let Israel say;
2  “they have greatly oppressed me from my youth,
    but they have not gained the victory over me.
3  Plowmen have plowed my back
    and made their furrows long.
4  But the  Lord  is righteous;
    he has cut me free from the cords of the wicked.”

The rods had plowed across their back with long furrows, but the enemy did not gain the victory.

My point is this: In the Bible, in the history of hymnody, and in our modern songs, God has given us the gift of music with lyrics for whatever we face in life. But we need our own internalized set of psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.

Apart from memorized Scripture, there is nothing more crucial to your emotional and spiritual well-being than having in your brain a selection of memorized psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.

Colossians 3:16 again: Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.

That implies the Word of Christ is filling in your mind, and the songs of Christ are filling your heart, which allows you to sing in the midnight hours of life.

I began with a missionary story, so let me close with one. I’ve just finished reading the story of Walter and Aliene Hunt, who were missionaries to the Philippines. They served there with great fruitfulness for many years, and then the Lord lead them back to the United States where they served Him faithfully for several more years.

One day in 1978, Walter and Aliene learned the International Church in Manila needed a pastor. At first, they resisted the thought. Walter was engaged in a stateside ministry, and Aliene had just begun a counseling ministry. Frankly, they didn’t want to go at first, but they felt a tug from the Holy Spirit.

One day, Aliene was driving on a Texas highway, and a song came to her mind with tremendous force: “All to Jesus, I surrender; all to Him I freely give. I will ever love and trust Him, in His presence daily live. I surrender all, I surrender all. All to Thee my blessed Savior, I surrender all.”

At that moment, she had total peace, joy, confidence, anticipation, and excitement. ‘OK, Lord, I will go,” she said. And they began preparing for their next stage of life and ministry.

When we have newer music and classic hymns stored away in our hearts, the Lord has a way of using it almost like memorized Scripture. So I’d like to suggest you select a song you like—new or old—and sing it enough to get the lyrics into your short-term and then into your long-term memory. It’s a practice now missing from most of the American church, but we can revive it.

I’ll have more about this next week. In the meantime, check out my course, Save, Sing, and Share the Hymns on the courses page of my website…

Thanks for digging into the riches of the Bible with me. 

This episode was produced by Joshua Rowe and the marketing company Clearly Media

Audio editing by Jared BrummetPrint editing and blog posting by Sherry Anderson, Luke Tyler, and Carson OutlawMusic by Jordan Davis and Elijah RoweLook for the transcript of this podcast soon on the blog page at my website, robertjmorgan.com, where you’ll also find many other resources.

Thanks for listening, and may God be with you until we meet again.

The post Whatever Happens, Sing at Midnight! appeared first on RobertJMorgan.com.

Whatever Happens, Depend on God to Guide You

Whatever Happens, God Will Guide You

Acts 16:6-10 (NIV)

Introduction

I grew up in Carter County, Tennessee, in the town of Elizabethton and in a cabin in my dad’s hometown of Roan Mountain, a few miles away. We kept that home in our family, and it’s alongside the Appalachian Trail at the base of the most beautiful spots on earth. The Roan Mountain Ridge towers about 6200 feet above sea level and there is still a lot of speculation about how it got its name. We call it “the Roan,” and perhaps the most likely explanation is that its covered with rhododendron bushes, which makes it the largest natural rhododendron garden on earth. When they bloom in mid-June, people come from all over the world to see them. But there’s another theory I was told as I grew up, and it involves Daniel Boone. It’s said he was exploring this area in the late 1700s or early 1800s on a roan-colored horse who became lame. Boone left the horse there and became lost. A year later, he visited again and his horse was fat and sleek and as healthy as could be. And he named the mountain for the horse.

It’s also said that when he was asked if he had gotten lost on the mountain, he replied, “I have never been lost, but I was bewildered once for three days.”

As I look back over my life with its mountains and valleys and summers and winters, I can say that as a follower of Christ, I have never been lost but I have been often bewildered. The way was not always as clear as I might have expected.

I wonder if any of you have been bewildered by life for three days, or three weeks, or three months, or three years? What about three decades? Do you ever feel you’re not quite sure what you’re supposed to doing or where you’re supposed to be going? Why is that?

If God designed the universe, which is filled with more gigantic stars then there are grains on sand on earth, can He not design our lives?If He can guide the tiny hummingbird on its 600-mile, twice-annual journey across the Gulf of Mexico, can He not guide us?

Yes, but sometimes His guidance is very perplexing. Sometimes we are bewildered for days or weeks or years.

I want to show you a paragraph about this in the Bible. It’s one of the most instructive Scriptures in all of God’s Word about how He guides and leads and directs His children. It’s a paragraph from the book of Acts having to do with the second missionary journey of St. Paul the apostle. Let’s read it in Acts 16:6-10:

Scripture

6  Paul and his companions traveled throughout the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia. 7 When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to. 8 So they passed by Mysia and went down to Troas. 

9  During the night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” 10 After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.

Background

Sir William Ramsey studied the life of Paul for decades and became one of the most respected scholars on the book of Acts and the life of Paul. He said, “This is in many respects the most remarkable paragraph in [the book of] Acts.”[1]

Let me provide some background. In Acts 13, a man named Barnabas was leading the growing church in the city of Antioch, which was one of the largest cities in the Roman Empire. Needing help, he recruited Saul of Tarsus, who was also named Paul. The two of them worked in Antioch, and it was there they were sent out as the first church-sponsored missionary team in history. They went to Cyprus and on into what we would call today southern Turkey. They had some problems along the way, including the fact that their assistant, John Mark, deserted them and returned home.

Now, look at Acts 15:36-40: Some time later, Paul said to Barnabas, “Let us go back and visit the believers in all the towns where we preached the word of the Lord and see how they are doing.” Barnabas wanted to take John [Mark]with them, but Paul did not think it wise to take him, because he had deserted them in Pamphylia and had not continued with them in the work. They had such a sharp disagreement that they parted company.

Now, the term “sharp disagreement” is a very strong Greek word. They had a terrible and prolonged argument.

Barnabas took Mark and sailed for Cyprus, but Paul chose Silas and left, commended by the believers to the grace of the Lord. He went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches.

At the beginning of chapter 16, Paul came to the cities he had visited in what we now call southeast Turkey and he discovered that his prior visit had resulted in the conversion of a young man named Timothy, who joined him and Silas. So now we have three travelers in southeastern Turkey, and they had all of Asia Minor—that is, all of modern-day Turkey—before them.

But as they press from east to west across that great expanse, for some reason every door is closed, every option is forbidden, every opportunity is denied them. And day after day, they are not lost, but they are bewildered. Where did God want them to go? What did He want them to do?

And that brings us to our central paragraph of study:

6  Paul and his companions traveled throughout the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia. 

In other words, the team pressed westward through the interior of Turkey—or Asia Minor—but the Holy Spirit prevented Paul from preaching.

How He did this we aren’t told. There are several possibilities.

Paul could have been sick—too ill to preach.He could have been warned in a dream or by a revelation not to preach.He might have simply had an inward impression that kept him from preaching.

But this must have been very perplexing to him. Here he was, prepared, eager, on a mission to preach, among people who needed the Gospel. But the Holy Spirit said, “Don’t do it.”

7  When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to. 

Since they couldn’t preach in one area, they tried to go in another direction but the Spirit of Jesus said, “No.”

8  So they passed by Mysia and went down to Troas. 

If you look at a map, this is a long way! The total distance from their point of origin in Antioch in Syria to Troas, which is on the Aegean Sea, is over a thousand miles. And He was trying to follow the will of God, and there was simply one door closed after another. He kept trying to find a way forward and the Lord kept saying no.

And finally, look at what happened in verses 9-10:

9  During the night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” 10 After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.

Finally, when Paul had gone as far as he could with nothing but frustrations and closed doors, he came to the shore of the ocean that separates modern Asia from modern Europe, and as he tossed and turned that night trying to make sense of it he was roused to see a figure of a man in his room, hovering there—a man from northern Greece. And the man said, “Please, we need the Gospel. Come over to Europe and help us.”

And now, something very subtle happens. Suddenly the writer of the book of Acts, the beloved physician, Luke, is there beside Paul and the narrative changes to “we.” According to the early historian, Eusebius, Luke was from Antioch. But there was a respected medical school in Philippi, and could it be that Luke, the beloved physician, was in Philippi and was the “man from Macedonia”?

9  During the night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” 10 After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.

There is a mystery to this passage and you can read all the theories and explanations and I don’t have the answers. All I can tell you is that Paul was never lost but he was bewildered for about three months and hundreds of miles. Instead of opening doors the Lord was closing them, one after another. And in this way He led Paul, Silas, and Timothy to the Macedonian call, gave him a helper named Luke, and sent Him westward into Europe with the Gospel rather than eastward into Asia.

And it changed history!

Now, what can we learn from this about our own journeys? Let me give you four lessons.

What All This Means

1. GOD’S WILL FOR OUR LIVES IS PERPLEXING: THAT’S WHY WE WALK BY FAITH.

We do not always understand why we feel shut out, why we encounter one closed door after another. But part of the reason is this: He is teaching us to walk by faith.

When I graduated from Graduate School in 1976, I drove right back home to Roan Mountain where I started looking for a church to pastor and preparing for my wedding to Katrina that fall. There were many little churches in the mountains needing a pastor, but none of them wanted to hire me. Katrina and I were married, and we both got jobs at retail stores. We were interviewed by twelve different churches, and each one of them said no. For an entire year—the entire first year of our marriage—every door closed. But then, on our first wedding anniversary, a little country church outside of Greeneville, Tennessee sounded a Macedonian Call and said, “Come over here and help us.”

In the years afterward, we were as thankful for the twelve closed doors as we were for the one that opened.

I’m not a golfer, but it’s hard to see a beautiful golf course and not want to play a game in such a beautiful setting. One man who did want to play—and to play professionally—was Jon Decker. His childhood dream was being a pro golfer. Part of the reason is where he was born, which was at Fork Gordon Army Base in Augusta, Georgia. As a child, his uncle had taken him to the Augusta National Golf Course where the Masters is played every year. Jon later said that the moment he saw that course, he was hooked. He felt like he was in a fairy tale. It was the most beautiful place he had ever seen, with the greenest grass. The players in their colorful clothing looked like an artist’s palate. From that moment, he knew he wanted to become a professional golfer. By high school, he was amazing on the course. He was recruited by several schools, but he decided to go to East Carolina University where he wanted to walk onto the team.

And Jon had a disastrous tryout. When he learned he didn’t make the team, he turned his face to the wall and wept like a baby. He thought his life was over.

But much later in life he wrote:

I failed in my attempt to make the golf team during my freshman year, but now I teach collegiate and professional golfers on a regular basis. I’ve taught at the…Woman’s U.S. Open and at…PGA Championships…. I now teach my old suitemates who did make the golf team in August of 1985. I’ve given regular lessons to [many great golfers]…. God closed the door on my collegiate golf career and opened the door to my professional teaching career, bringing me back to my dearest friends and their families on a regular basis as a guide to their development and improvement as players.”[2]

Today John is the Director of Instruction for The Medallion Club in Westerville, Ohio, and a Top 25 Instructor for Golf Tips Magazine. He also leads Bible studies and serves as a spiritual coach to those he instructions.

The German hymn, “Now Thank We All Our God,” has this beautiful stanza:

Now may this bounteous God

Be all our lives be near us,

With ever joyful hearts

And blessed peace to cheer us.

And keep us in His grace

And guide us when perplexed

And free us from all ills

In this world and the next.

We need guidance amid perplexity. God leads us through closed doors more than through open doors. For me during that first year of marriage, I had twelve closed doors but finally I got to Troas and found the one He wanted to open.

It only stands to reason we would have many more closed doors than open doors, doesn’t it? There are probably a thousand things God does not want us to do compared to every one that He does.

And through it all, we are learning to walk by faith.

2. GOD’S WILL FOR OUR LIVES IS PROGRESSIVE: THAT’S WHY WE KEEP KNOCKING ON DOORS.

Look at verse 7: When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to.

They tried! They tried this way and that way!

Now, of course, the Lord knew exactly where He wanted them to go, and He could have told them from the very beginning: “Go straight to Troas and there you’ll get the Macedonian call.” But He didn’t.

I confess I do not fully understand why. All I know is that’s the way life has worked the best for me.

If we’re too passive, we never knock on doors. We just wait to see if the Lord will open them without putting in the necessary effort and risk.

If we’re too aggressive, we try to push open the doors and go where God doesn’t intend.

So I’ve found the best approach is to knock softly or nudge against the door. If it opens, praise the Lord. If it doesn’t, praise the Lord.

3. GOD’S WILL FOR OUR LIVES IS PREMEDITATED: THAT’S WHY WE STAY POSITIVE.

The most remarkable thing about this paragraph—and you have to read it closely or you’ll miss it—is the involvement of the Trinity. I don’t know how to explain it, but the Lord was not just somehow casually leading Paul and his companions along a puzzling pathway. The entire Godhead—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—were collaborating to synchronize everything perfectly.

6  Paul and his companions traveled throughout the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia. 7 When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to. 8 So they passed by Mysia and went down to Troas. 

9  During the night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” 10 After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.

Whenever you see the word “God” by itself in the New Testament—the Greek word Theos—it is inevitably a reference to God the Father. God the Father had called them to preach the Gospel in Macedonia. God the Son had planned the route. And God the Holy Spirit was guiding them down the unknown path one step at a time.

And the plan is born from eternity past.

Psalm 139:16 (TLB) says: You saw me before I was born and scheduled each day of my life before I began to breathe. Every day was recorded in Your book!

In the first volume in my series of books called Then Sings My Soul, I told the story of how Joseph Gilmore wrote the hymn, “He Leadeth Me.” His father was the governor of New Hampshire, and it was during the darkest days of the Civil War. Joseph had just graduated from seminary, and he was asked to speak at the midweek service of a church in Philadelphia. He decided to give a talk about the Twenty-third Psalm, but somehow he couldn’t get past the words, “He leadeth me in paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.” Joseph talked about God’s wonderful guidance even in perilous times. He later said the words of that verse took hold of him as they had never done so before, and after the service was over he took a blank sheet of paper and instantly wrote the words to this hymn, which has been such a comfort and a blessing to me all of my entire life.

He leadeth me, O blessed thought!

O words with heavenly comfort fraught!

Whate’er I do, where’ere I be,

Still ‘tis God’s hand that leadeth me.

He leadeth me, He leadeth me,

By His own hand He leadeth me.

His faithful follower I would be,

For by His hand He leadeth me.

4. GOD’S WILL FOR OUR LIVES IS PURPOSEFUL: THAT’S WHY WE CANNOT STOP.

Paul and his handful of fellow travelers made it to Troas, saw the man from Macedonia, met the beloved physician Luke, and crossed over to modern-day Europe and brought the Gospel to the city of Philippi. They could not, would not stop.

At age 70, I’ve been looking back over my life, and the doors that I really wanted to open didn’t. But other doors that I could never have imagined did open. And I can see it was all in the purposeful providence and guidance of the Lord. And I cannot stop and will not stop.

And neither will you.

We may sometimes be bewildered for three days—as the disciples were on the weekend of Christ’s crucifixion. But Sunday dawned and clarity came… because whatever happens to the child of God who is seeking to follow Jesus Christ, God will guide you.

[1] William M. Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveler and the Roman Citizen (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1982), 198.

[2] Adapted from Jon Decker, Golf is My Game (Meadville, PA: Christian Faith Publishing), passim.

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What Happens When You Believe in Jesus?

A study of the Fourth Gospel, especially John 11:45 – 57

Introduction: I’ve tried to imagine serving right now as a pastor of a church in Ukraine. What would it be like to be a wartime pastor? I can’t imagine it. I just read the story of a pastor whose church is outside Kiev. When the people met last Sunday, he gave worshippers time to stand and share testimonies and harrowing stories about the air raids. The whole church prayed on its knees for their president, their country, and for peace. Then the pastor preached from Proverbs 29:25: The fear of man brings a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord shall be safe.

What an appropriate text! Notice that phrase—whoever trusts in the Lord…

There’s something about the preposition that turns faith into something very personal. It’s one thing to trust the Lord, and it’s another to trust in the Lord. It’s one thing to believe Him and it’s another to believe in Him.

I’ve occasionally considered bungee jumping. I’ve watched videos and wondered what that would be like. So far I’ve not taken the plunge. But imagine we visited a professional outfitter and the operator showed me the rope. Do you believe this rope is safe and sound? Do you believe this harness has integrity? Will the buckles hold firm? Will the hooks stay attached? Are the operators qualified?

I could believe all that. But that doesn’t mean I’d get into the harness. It’s one thing to believe it, and it’s another to believe in it. It’s one thing to trust it, and it’s another to trust in it. That’s why the writer of Proverbs said, “The fear of man brings a snare but whoever trusts in the Lord will be safe.” We’re trusting in the Lord when we buckle up in the harness of grace, unafraid of the ups and downs of life.

The apostle John is called the Apostle of Belief. But you can read the Fourth Gospel from first to last, and you’ll not find the word “faith” in a literal translation. John never talked about “faith.” That was a favorite word of Paul’s, but John preferred a more intimate word. “Faith” is a noun, but “believe in” is a verb. That was John’s term. 

Leon Morris, in his commentary on John, said this phrase—to believe in Jesus—”is John’s favorite construction of genuine trust. It’s a remarkable thing that the word ‘faith’ does not occur anywhere in the Gospel of John. But the word believe occurs nearly 100 times.”

I’d like to trace a few occasions in John of the phrase “believe in,” beginning in John chapter 3, the meeting of Jesus and Nicodemus one night in old Jerusalem. 

John 3: Believing in Jesus Brings Us Eternal Life

Notice three verses in this chapter:

John 3:16: For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.John 3:18: Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.John 3:36: Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them.

All three verses contain both a promise and a warning. If we believe in Christ we will have eternal life. If we don’t, we are condemned already. We will perish and God’s wrath remains on us.

John 6: Believing in Jesus Gives Us Emotional Satisfaction

John 6:35 says: I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to Me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in Me will never be thirsty. 

I cannot imagine not being a follower of Jesus Christ, can you? When I wake up in the morning, I grab my Bible and the God of the Universe speaks to me. He listens as I tell Him my concerns. He goes into every day with me. He forgives my shortcomings and helps me do better. His promises create a mental paradigm in which I can make sense of the world. At night, He comforts me. 

In heavenly abiding,
No change my heart shall fear
And safe is such confiding
For nothing changes here.
The storm may roar without me,
My heart may low be laid,
But God is round about me
And can I be dismayed?

John 7: Believing in Jesus Unleashes the Holy Spirit

Let go to John 7:37: On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to Me and drink. Whoever believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” By this, He meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were later to receive. 

This is some of the richest imagery in the Bible. The Garden of Eden was God’s original home on this earth, and four different rivers flowed from there to water the earth. According to Ezekiel 47, when Jesus reigns in Jerusalem during the Millennium, a vast river will flow from beneath the temple to water and irrigate the desert. We’re told in Revelation 22 that when we see the Lord enthroned in New Jerusalem, a river of living waters as clear as crystal will flow from the throne to refresh the entire city and the New Earth.

Jesus is using that imagery here to say when He is enthroned in our lives, rivers of living water will flow from within us to irrigate thirsty souls and make this planet inhabitable. From our churches, our ministries, and our lives gush the river of the Holy Spirit’s power.

John 11: Believing in Jesus Solves the Problem of Death

Now, let’s move to John 11. In John 11:25, Jesus said to Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in Me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in Me will never die.

Because He is the Resurrection, those who believe in Him will live, even though they die.Because He is the Life, those who live by believing in Him will never die.

The first part of this verse refers to our bodies, for they fall asleep until the resurrection; but the second part of the verse refers to our spirits, which never die nor cease consciousness. The moment we die in Christ, our conscious souls will fly instantly to New Jerusalem and be with our loved ones and with the Lord and with His angels. 

I’ve been asked, “Will we be disembodied spirits during the intermediate state, between the moment of our death and the moment of our resurrection? Will we have any kind of body or simply be disembodied spirits, like invisible ghosts floating around?

I’m convinced we are not going to be disembodied spirits in heaven. Angels are spirits. They are incorporeal. They’re part of the invisible realm. They’re disembodied, as it were, as far as we know. But they can project the image of bodies. They can assume the form of a body. They can have a manifested body. People saw angels who appeared as if they were human beings.

In the book of Revelation, we have glimpses of souls who are already in Heaven. They are singing. They are worshiping. They are dressed in white. They are not intangible, invisible spirits. On two different occasions in Revelation, John said that he saw the spirits of those who had perished for Christ during the Tribulation. He visually saw them.

In Luke 16, the beggar Lazarus was walking and talking with Abraham. 

I believe God has some interim way to make us known, to allow us to function, and to enjoy His fellowship and that of one another. Our bodies will die in Christ and be resurrected when He comes; but the conscious real us—our spirit and soul and mind—will never die. In some way we will have the temporary appearance, some kind of manifestation, and we will be functional people as we await the resurrection.

John 11: Believing in Jesus Unites Us with a Condemned Man

That brings us to the pivotal paragraph in the book of John—chapter 11:45-57. In chapter 11, Jesus performed the most dramatic miracle of His life. He publicly raised Lazarus from the dead in the presence of many people and in a dramatic way. According to the four Gospels, Jesus raised three people back to life. The other two were up in Galilee, and He performed those miracles with a quiet and compassionate touch. But here at the tomb of Lazarus, Jesus shouted in a loud voice and everything was designed to electrify those in attendance. He was deliberately provoking the authorities. 

This transitional paragraph is the pivotal paragraph in the book of John. It’s like the hinge that connects two parts.

John 1 – 11 covers three years and ends with a resurrection. John 12 – 21 covers seven days and ends with a resurrection. 

I don’t know of anywhere else in the Bible like this where the pacing changes so dramatically in a narrative. Everything pivots at this point. After this, chapters 12 through 21 cover only seven days. This paragraph marks the major transition in the Gospel of John, and it marks the point where things turn for the worse in the life of Jesus of Nazareth. 

45  Therefore many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen what Jesus did,  believed in him.

There’s our phrase again. Many who saw this miracle believed in Jesus. But they soon learned that believing in Him united them with a condemned man.

  46  But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done.  47  Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin.

The Sanhedrin was the ruling counsel of Israel, their Parliament or Congress. It was made up of seventy or so men. Some were Pharisees, who were theologically conservative; but the leaders were Sadducees, who were liberal in a theological sense. With few exceptions, this group viewed Jesus as a dangerous fanatic, and they viewed His miracle with alarm.

“What are we accomplishing?” they asked. “Here is this man performing many signs.  48  If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our temple and our nation.”

There’s our phrase again. They were afraid everyone would believe in Him, which could destabilize the nation and its tenuous relationship with the occupying Romans. Let’s go on to verse 49:

49  Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that [fateful] year, spoke up….

We know a lot about Caiaphas. A few years ago archaeologists discovered his coffin or ossuary. I’ve seen it in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. It bears the name Caiaphas and, according to forensic studies, it contained the bones of a man who died at the age of sixty.

Caiaphas was corrupt. Yet, unbeknownst to Him, God gave him a prophetic utterance. He said something deeper and wiser than he knew. He said something, the implications of which he didn’t perceive. Look at verse 49:

Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that [fateful] year, spoke up. “You know nothing at all!  50  You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.”

Listen to John’s explanation of that sentence:

51  He did not say this on his own, but as high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation,  52  and not only for that nation but also for the scattered children of God, to bring them together and make them one. 

God put those words into the mouth of this corrupt high priest, yet Caiaphas didn’t see the implications of his words.

53  So from that day on they plotted to take his life.

Jesus went into hiding in a town that was probably about a dozen miles northeast of Jerusalem, Ephraim, which is today the village of Taybeh. 

54  Therefore Jesus no longer moved about publicly among the people of Judea. Instead he withdrew to a region near the wilderness, to a village called Ephraim, where He stayed with His disciples.

These were the last peaceful, quiet days of Jesus Christ on earth as He prepared Himself for things to turn worse during the upcoming Jewish Passover. And in the days ahead, all the followers of Christ were following a condemned man.

John 14: Believing in Jesus Takes us to Heaven

There’s one last passage I want to show you. Turn to John 14: Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.

I’ve been reading Lee Strobel’s book, The Case for Heaven, and he interviewed Dr. Clay Jones, who is one a noted apologist.

Dr.  Jones was a troubled twelve year old in California in 1969. He was the son of an atheist and an astrologer, and he was sickly, bullied, and confused. That year he attended a Billy Graham crusade and heard Dr. Graham preach about heaven and hell, and he was converted—at age twelve. Over time, he became a deeply thoughtful Christian; he married his high school sweetheart, and he earned a number of academic degrees. 

One day he began suffering chronic back pain. After a number of tests, he received a call from his doctor telling him he was suffering from an aggressive form of bone cancer that kills all of its victims within two years.

Hanging up the phone, Dr. Jones and his wife, Jean, held hands, wept, and offered a prayer of thanksgiving for all God had done for them. They told the Lord He alone was in control, and they prayed for healing if it was His will.

“This is going to sound strange, but I wasn’t afraid of dying. Some people scoff when I say that, but it’s true. Yes, I mourned leaving my wife. But, you see, I had a robust view of heaven—and that’s what made all the difference.”

When I read that, I put down the book, went to my desk for a red pen, and underlined that sentence. Later, thankfully, Dr. Jones received an update. The diagnosis was mistaken and not as severe as he’d first been told. It was a great relief, of course, but Jones never forgot the lessons he had learned through the crisis.

We all need a robust view of heaven, and that only comes from believing in Him who said: Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you unto Myself that where I am there you may be also.

I memorized those verses in the third grade, and I wish every child in the world knew the opening verses of John 14. They have given me a lifelong robust view of Heaven.

In summary:

Believing in Jesus brings us eternal life.It provides us with internal, emotional satisfaction.It unleashes the Holy Spirit within us.It solves the problem of death.It unites us with a condemned man.But it’s that condemned man that frees us from condemnation and takes us on to Heaven.

Who would not believe in such a one as Jesus of Nazareth?

Conclusion

I don’t think I’m going to bungee jump. But one thing I know. In the ups and downs of life, the rope of God’s grace in Christ will keep me tethered and secure. We have a robust Savior, and in times like these we need a robust faith and a robust view of eternity; for the fear of man brings a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord dwells in safety.

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More Than Wonderful – Part 5

A Study of Psalm 139

Introduction

Today we’re finishing our five-part study of Psalm 139, so I’ll take a moment to review it all for you. In an earlier installment, I suggested we can write these words over Psalm 139: “What God Thinks of Me.” This is one of the Bible’s best passages for dealing with self-image and self-esteem. 

There are only 24 verses here, but the personal pronouns words “I” and “me” and “my” occur 48 times. The words “You” and “Your” occur 28 times. This is a very intimate Psalm, yet the writer frames everything around four of God’s almighty attributes.

In Psalm 139, David shows how these four of God’s infinite qualities intersect with our most personal lives. First, he focuses on God’s omniscience—God’s total knowledge of everything that exists, including you and me. In the Living Bible, David said in verses 1 through 6:

O Lord, you have examined my heart and know everything about me.  2  You know when I sit or stand. When far away you know my every thought.  3  You chart the path ahead of me and tell me where to stop and rest. Every moment you know where I am.  4  You know what I am going to say before I even say it.  5  You both precede and follow me and place your hand of blessing on my head. 6  This is too glorious, too wonderful to believe! 

The One who knows us best loves us most.

In the next six verses, David deals with God’s omnipresence—with His constant presence around us. Verses 7 through 12 say:

7  I can never be lost to your Spirit! I can never get away from my God!  8  If I go up to heaven, you are there; if I go down to the place of the dead, you are there.  9  If I ride the morning winds to the farthest oceans,  10  even there your hand will guide me, your strength will support me.  11  If I try to hide in the darkness, the night becomes light around me.  12  For even darkness cannot hide from God; to you the night shines as bright as day. Darkness and light are both alike to you.

God’s omnipresence fills the universe, but His relational presence is closer to us than we can imagine. We can practice the presence of God day and night.

In the next six verses, David deals with God’s omnipotence, with His creative power. Verses 13 through 18 say:

13  You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit them together in my mother’s womb.  14  Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! It is amazing to think about. Your workmanship is marvelous—and how well I know it.  15  You were there while I was being formed in utter seclusion!  16  You saw me before I was born and scheduled each day of my life before I began to breathe. Every day was recorded in your book! 17-18  How precious it is, Lord, to realize that you are thinking about me constantly! I can’t even count how many times a day your thoughts turn toward me. And when I waken in the morning, you are still thinking of me!

To paraphrase: “Lord, You made me as a unique person, and whether I’m sleeping or away, You are still thinking about me! You have a specific plan for my life.”

Now today, we’re coming to the last six verses, Psalm 139:19-24, which deal with the attribute of quality of God’s righteousness. There is a dramatic shift here that seems jarring to us. I think you’ll sense that. Let me read it, and then we’ll discuss it.

19  Surely you will slay the wicked, Lord! Away, bloodthirsty men! Begone!  20  They blaspheme your name and stand in arrogance against you—how silly can they be?  21  O Lord, shouldn’t I hate those who hate you? Shouldn’t I be grieved with them?  22  Yes, I hate them, for your enemies are my enemies too.

23  Search me, O God, and know my heart; test my thoughts.  24  Point out anything you find in me that makes you sad, and lead me along the path of everlasting life.

It seems these verses provide the occasion or the reason for David’s writing this Psalm. He was being attacked or criticized or tormented or threatened by some people who are described here as wicked, bloodthirsty, blasphemers, arrogant, and enemies of God. David was upset and anxious. He was beside himself. Perhaps the nation of Israel is under attack by the armies of an enemy who wants to wipe out Israel. Or perhaps this was a personal attack.

Slay the Wicked

In any case, David prayed, in the words of the New International Version: “If only you, God, would slay the wicked!  Away from me, you who are bloodthirsty.”

As I’ve been studying this passage, I’ve also been watching the heartbreaking and maddening news of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that began at the end of February 2022. Is hating leaders who commit such atrocities wrong? Well, I pray for Vladimir Putin’s salvation, but I’m offended with what I think is righteous indignation by his arrogance, wickedness, cruelty, oppression, loathsome attitude and actions. I hate what he is doing with all the hatred I have within me. His evil is terrifying to watch, and it leads to the pitiful destruction of many innocent people. If people of such evil can escape the justice of God, something is wrong.

David isn’t quite sure why God is allowing it. He said: “If only you, God, would slay the wicked!  Away from me, you who are bloodthirsty.”

They Speak of You with Evil Intent

Verse 20 goes on to say in the New International Version: “They speak of You with evil intent; Your adversaries misuse Your name.”

The Psalmist is saying, “These enemies are not so much attacking me as they are attacking You, Lord.”

And that’s true. The evil we see in our world is the result of rebellion against God. The British journalist Malcolm Muggeridge related his conversation with Svetlana Stalin, the daughter of Josef Stalin. Muggeridge and Svetlana were working together on a BBC project. According to Svetlana, as Stalin lay dying, plagued with terrifying hallucinations, he suddenly sat halfway up in bed, clenched his fist toward heaven, then fell back upon his pillow and was dead.

There is an iron cable of evil that pierces through and links all the evil dictators and despots of history. It also runs through us, but the blood of Jesus Christ dissolves it and sets us free. When people reject the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, they’re left with nothing but this impaling iron cable that drags them down into hell and into judgment.

I Hate Those Who Hate You

In verses 21-22, David brings this idea of hatred right up to the surface, saying, “Do I not hate those who hate you, Lord, and abhor those who are in rebellion against You? I have nothing but hatred for them; I count them as my enemies.”

At first glance, this seems to conflict with the teaching Jesus gave in His Sermon on the Mount, where He told us to love our enemies and to pray for those who despitefully use us. 

Many years ago, I visited a man who wasn’t yet ready to give his life to Christ. One of his objections was that somehow he had opened the Bible to the book of Malachi, which begins with these words: “I have loved you, says the Lord. But you ask, how have You loved us? Was not Esau Jacob’s brother? Declares the Lord. Yet I have loved Jacob, but Esau I have hated.”

This man could not understand a God who would love one brother but hate the other. He didn’t want to follow a God who hated people.

I can understand that objection, but it underestimates the perfections of God. If God does have the capacity to hate, His hatred would be as pure and perfect and good and appropriate as His love.

When we think of hatred, we think of personal emotional animosity and resentment. We think of personal scorn and spite. That may not be the best way to define the word “hate” as it relates to Almighty God.

In his theological dictionary, Geoffrey W. Bromiley describes this word, as it relates to God, as not “emotional hate but a disowning of evil and those who commit it.”

In the case of Jacob and Esau, there is no sense that God had an emotional preference for one over the other. But one of the boys and not the other was chosen to be in the lineage of the Messiah based on how God knew they would turn out.

There’s a book called Hard Sayings in the Bible, written by a series of brilliant Bible scholars including Walter Kaiser and F. F. Bruce. In their comment on Malachi 1, they said: “When Scripture talks about God’s hatred, it uses a distinctively biblical idiom which does not imply that Yahweh exhibits disgust, disdain or a desire for revenge. [But] there are clear objects meriting God’s hatred including [evil], all forms of hypocritical worship, and even death itself.”

They went on to say, “God does not experience psychological hatred with all its negative and sinful connotations.”

Here is Psalm 139, David never says that God hates anyone. David is wondering why the Lord is still allowing those whom David hates to live. He said, “If only you, God, would slay the wicked! Do not I hate those who hate you, Lord? I have nothing but hatred for them.”

The lesson for us in all this is to find the balance of the Lord Jesus Christ in the way we deal with people who are evil and who are fostering even on others and on our planet.  They are invading our righteousness and they are violating the righteousness of God.

Jesus said we should love our enemies. He said that in the Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew 5, He said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get?”

But later in the same message, the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of My Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in Your name drive out demons and in Your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from Me, you evildoers.” 

As far as I can process it, this is the balance. God loves people. He loves everyone, and so should we, even when they do wrong things. We should love them, praying they will repent. But if they will not repent, at some point the righteousness of a just God will repel them backward, right into judgment. Evil will not win the victory. Wickedness will not prevail. Sin and suffering will not endure. 

We can love people, and yet be zealous in our hatred of evil. We can fight as hard as we can, in the strength of the Lord, to keep the righteousness of God aflame in our lives. We can strive by God’s strength to maintain our personal holiness—and to help us, David ends Psalm 139 with one of the most practical and important prayers in the Bible. The entire Psalm comes down to this. Let me read verses 23 and 24 from the New International Version: 

Search Me, O God

“Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”

I had a friend in Bible College who looked unusually disconcerted one day, and I said, “Steve, what’s wrong?” He said, “I prayed the prayer at the end of Psalm 139 and asked God to shine his spotlight on whatever was wrong in my life, and I am overwhelmed with what I’ve seen. I think I’m going to have to pray, ‘Lord, shut it off! Shut it off!”

Well, I don’t think Steve ever prayed for God to shut it off,  because he went on to become a powerful Christian leader. I think he always wanted God to assess him and help him. But it does honestly take some courage to offer this prayer.

Recently, I summoned up my courage and have been praying this. What I’d like to do as we end our study is to walk through this prayer so we glean as much of its meaning as we can.

Verse 23 says, “Search me, O God.” Here the Psalm comes full circle with its four segments. The last one about God’s righteousness and its prayer brings us right back to the beginning. Look at verse 1: “You have searched me, Lord, and you know me.”

This is not a one-time prayer. It’s the constant prayer of the believer. It’s like having our annual physical. I’ve gone back to my same doctor year after year and said, “Doctor, examine me and see if there’s any sign of disease or illness, and help me stay as healthy as possible.” It’s a regular routine and rhythm in my life, and I will go so far as to say I might not be alive today otherwise.

Our Great Physician who knows us best, who loves us most, who created us in our mother’s wombs, who is thinking about us constantly—He wants to keep you as emotionally, spiritually, and even physically healthy as possible. And this is a prayer for ongoing spiritual health.

Search me, O God, and know my heart.

Christians should never suffer from heart disease—and I’m talking about our innermost hearts, our spirits and souls and psyches. Spin up your courage and pray this: Search me, O God, and know my heart.

The next phrase says, “Test me and know my anxious thoughts.” David has been suffering from anxiety. His nation was facing invasion, or he was facing pressure from these evildoers—we don’t know the specifics of the background of this Psalm—but he was having some panic attacks. He was anxious.

The word used here in the Hebrew is the same as Psalm 94:19, which says, “When anxiety was great within me, Your consolation brought me joy.”

God doesn’t want our hearts overwhelmed and ruled by anxious thoughts. So we need to say, “Lord, search me. See what’s wrong with my faith. See what’s wrong with my heart. Study my anxious thoughts. Yes, I do have the wicked, the bloodthirsty,  those with evil intent, those who hate you. Yes, Lord, there are urgent and terrible problems. But anxious thoughts are not the right response to it all. Lord, show me how to recover my trust, my peace, my strength, my poise, and my focus on You.”

But, of course, there’s more than anxiety that can sicken our hearts and spirits. There is sin in all of its subtle forms. And so the Psalmist goes on to pray in verse 24: “See if there is ANY wicked way in me.”

That could involve our thought lives, it could be unrecognized pride, unrealized bitterness, undetected greed, misguided priorities. There can be things wrong with us without our knowing it.

It’s possible that right now you or I have some level of disease in our bodies but we don’t yet know it. But the sooner we find out, the greater our likelihood of survival and good health. 

There can be a lot of things wrong with our personalities that we can’t detect without the skill of the Great Physician, and so we say: “Lord, see if there is any offensive way in me.”

The implication is—Lord, please help me correct anything in my life that is harmful or not pleasing to me.

And the Psalm ends by saying, “And let me in the way everlasting.”

Let me paraphrase that: “Lord, let me walk in utmost spiritual and emotional health along the pathway you’ve given me through this earth to Heaven.”

Conclusion

When I was in Bible College, a great church historian came to our campus to lecture. His name was J. Edwin Orr. I later learned that in 1936, Dr. Orr had been involved in a series of Gospel meetings in an island of the South Pacific, off the coast of New Zealand. Prayer meetings proliferated across the area, many students were coming to Christ, and the area began overflowing with the testimonies of those being saved and renewed in Christ.

One day Dr. Orr heard four Aborigine girls sing a beautiful song entitled “The Song of Farewell,” the first words being, “Now is the hour when we must say goodbye.”  Unable to get the lovely Polynesian tune out of his mind, Dr. Orr began singing it to himself using words from Scripture, from Psalm 139. These words he jotted them down on the back of an envelope while standing in the post office, and they were first published in his book, All You Need.

His words and that music became a well-known 20th-century hymn. I’m not going to sing it for you, but I encourage you to look it up and learn it from your music app. The words say:

Search me, O God, and know my heart today,
Try me, O Savior, know my thoughts, I pray;
See if there be some wicked way in me;
Cleanse me from every sin, and set me free.

Thanks for digging into the Bible with me, and may God be with you until we meet again.

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More Than Wonderful – Part 4

A Study of Psalm 139

Introduction 

As we get started today, let me tell you about a book I’ve just finished reading, which is published by Tyndale House. When the remains of the Titanic were discovered, ABC sent Dr. Michael Guillen, author of Believing is Seeing, to cover the story. He had been hired as the lead Science correspondent for ABC news after doctoral work at Cornell University and Harvard in the fields of physics, mathematics and astronomy. His extensive study in the sciences had led him to reject his atheism, proclaiming that the “Christian worldview best answers all my questions… (and) best squares with the scientific worldview…it’s easy for me to be both a scientist and a Christian.”

Now, Guillen had never learned to swim and he was terrified by the water. But he had no choice but to squeeze into a tiny Russian-made submarine-like capsule and go to the very bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. He found himself lying flat on his stomach in the tiny sub, peering out the window. Suddenly he saw rivets, and he realized he was face to face with the famous doomed ship. He began to cry when he saw it. During the next hour or so, the pilot of the sub took Guillen on a tour of the remains of the vessel, and then there was a problem.

The sub became caught in a fast-moving, deep-underwater current, which slammed it into the Titanic’s propeller. The submarine got caught. Ten minutes passed, and Guillen fought the panic that was overtaking him. He knew they had limited oxygen and no way to get help from above. As the pilot of the sub fought to free the vessel from the propeller, a heavy, crushing depression and sadness came over Guillen, and he thought of how he would likely perish just like the remains of all the victims of the tragedy on the Titanic just on the other side of the window. He was terrified.

And then he remembered the Lord and he thought of his Savior, and, as he later wrote, “Something happened that’s difficult to describe. The feel of the sub’s interior space abruptly changed somehow. It was as if an invisible presence had entered it. At the same time, an uncanny and unheralded sensation of peace washed over me.”

Within a few minutes, the submarine’s captain managed to free the little capsule, and Dr. Guillen lived to tell the story on the air. 

He later said, “A few months later, Laurel and I were reading the Bible when we came across this Psalm: ‘Where shall I go from Your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to Heaven, You are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, You are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.”

Dr. Guillen said, “For as long as I live, Psalm 139 will never again be merely words in the Bible.”

This story illustrates so much about Psalm 139. It’s not just how this chapter of the Bible spoke to him on this occasion, although that is a remarkable story. It’s how gradually and almost grudgingly a brilliant scientist came to the conclusion that the complexity of Creation cannot be adequately explained outside of a biblical worldview.

Review

The overall subject of Psalm 139 is how God thinks of you and me. The Psalmist reviews four great qualities or attributes of God, and he investigates how these qualities intersect with our lives. The outline is very clear. The twenty-four verses break into four divisions of six verses each.

Verses 1-6 focus on God’s omniscience. The Lord knows everything about us. Verses 7-12 focus on God’s omnipresence. The Lord is everywhere we are or ever can be. Now we’re coming to verses 13-18: God’s omnipotence. God’s power created us and designed our lives for us in advance. Let’s read these verses from The Living Bible.

Scripture

13  You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit them together in my mother’s womb.  14  Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! It is amazing to think about. Your workmanship is marvelous—and how well I know it.  15  You were there while I was being formed in utter seclusion!

  16  You saw me before I was born and scheduled each day of my life before I began to breathe. Every day was recorded in your book!

17-18  How precious it is, Lord, to realize that you are thinking about me constantly! I can’t even count how many times a day your thoughts turn toward me. And when I awaken in the morning, you are still thinking of me!

There are three emphases here. In verses 13-15, David talks about God’s creation of him; in verse 16, he stands in awe of God’s agenda for him; and in verses 17-18, he rejoices in God’s affection for him.

God’s Creation of You is Wonderful

Let’s begin with God’s creation of you. Here are verses 13-15 again. The English Standard Version says: For You formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

The Lord formed your inward parts and knitted you together in your mother’s womb. Job 10:11 says something similar: “You clothed me with skin and flesh, and knit me together with bones and sinews.” 

We know much more now than David knew about the development of a baby in the womb. We know that at conception, the baby’s eye and hair color, gender, and much more are already set. By the third week, his or her brain, spinal cord, heart, and gastrointestinal tract are being developed. All of this is before a woman typically even takes a pregnancy test.

By week four, the beginnings of a nervous system, skin, hair, and enamel for teeth begin to develop, as well as the foundations of a heart, lungs, skeletal system, and much more.

And by week five, the baby’s heart is beating.

And yet, every baby that has ever been born and developed is unique. You are creatively distinct from every other person who has ever lived on earth or who is living on earth now, which researchers say is over 100 billion people, including the nearly 8 billion alive today.

There is no one like you and there never will be—you are fearfully and wonderfully made.

This is why Christians are such outspoken advocates for the protection of preborn children. The brutal and unspeakable injustice of our day is the savagery of the taking of these little lives and these beating hearts.

David’s point is one of wonderful praise and the complexity of the body God had formed for him. And no wonder. God gave you lungs that take about 20,000 breaths a day. Your heart beats about 100,000 times a day, and you have 100,000 miles of blood vessels inside you—100,000 miles of blood vessels! Your liver, which is the largest gland in the body, performs more than 500 essential functions every day. Your tongue is covered by about 8,000 taste buds. You have more than 600 muscles; and ounce for ounce your bones are literally stronger than steel. And here’s something you probably didn’t know. An average individual can produce enough saliva during his or her lifetime to fill two swimming pools.

I haven’t even talked about the human brain—but you get the point.

One writer said, “Your body’s parts — from the largest bones and organs to the smallest molecules and cells — are put together with a precision no engineer could design. Your body is able to do a remarkable array of things. And it must do many of them nonstop without your attention.”

I’ve been reading a book that is a little above my head. It’s by Dr. Marcos N. Eberlin, who is the former president of the International Mass Spectrometry Foundation. His book is called Foresight: How the Chemistry of Life Reveals Planning and Purpose. Dr. Eberlin contends that the science of biology is in the middle of a gold rush of discovery. He wrote, “All of this new knowledge is exhilarating in its own right. At the same time, I am now convinced that many of these discoveries, taken together, point beyond themselves to something ever more extraordinary. This new age of discovery is revealing a myriad of artful solutions to major engineering challenges, solutions that for all the world appear to require something that matter alone lacks. I will put this as plainly as I can: The rush of discovery seems to point beyond any purely blind evolutionary process to the workings of an attribute unique to minds—foresight.”

David knew that 3,000 years ago. God’s creation of you is unique and wonderful. That’s what we find in verses 13 through 15.

God’s Agenda for You is Established 

Verse 16 goes on to say that God’s agenda for you is established. He didn’t just create you fearfully and wonderfully in order to throw you into random confusion and disorganized chaos. When He created you, He had an agenda already in mind for your life.

Verse 16 says:  16 You saw me before I was born and scheduled each day of my life before I began to breathe. Every day was recorded in your book!

This is as close as I’ve ever come to having a life verse. I’m not sure where the original copy of my first Living Bible is, but I can still see this verse highlighted in vivid yellow lying open on my dormitory desk. I found this verse one day in my devotions, and I’ve never been the same. It’s wonderful to discover this verse while a young adult!

Later I found a New Testament verse that says essentially the same thing—Ephesians 2:10: “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

I wrote about this in my book, Mastering Life Before It’s Too Late. If God has planned each day of my life, then I should wake up every morning and say, “Lord, what do you want me to do today.” 

Let me read you what I wrote in that book: 

The child of God never awakens to a day unplanned by heaven or unattended by the Lord. When the alarm goes off each morning, we roll out of bed knowing we have a divine purpose, plan, and presence. There are no blackout dates on the calendars God keeps for our lives. There are no mistakes in His almanac. “His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:22-23).

We are not on earth haphazardly—not products of primordial sludge that randomly came to life and accidentally developed into the complexity of who we are. We’re made in God’s own image, and He always operates with purpose, passion, peace, and poise.

We are on earth today because God designed an individual plan for us to be alive at this particular moment, knowing in advance the impact we can have in a world He loves. Since He is all-knowing, the past and future are equally plain to Him.

We were each born on just the right day on his calendar, and we will finish our earthly tasks at just the right moment in his will.

He placed us on a planet that rotates on its axis by his command once every twenty-four hours.

He has correspondingly planned his will to unfold in one-day increments. While we do our best to ascertain what God has for us in the future and plan our calendars accordingly, we wisely live in one-day increments.

Our greatest joy is to open each day determined to invest our daily allotment of hours doing exactly what God has planned for us—being about our Father’s business. If we begin each day with a prayer for his will to be done as it’s done in heaven, we’ll end each day bringing glory to Him on earth by completing the tasks He’s given us.

This pattern, pursued for a lifetime, will enable us to finish the work God has given us at the end of our earthly lives, and we’ll begin our heavenly careers with the words: “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

The person who understands this lives radically different from those who don’t. 

So God’s creation of you is wonderful, and His agenda for you is established.

God’s Thoughts of You are Continual

Finally, God’s thoughts of you are continual. Verses 17 and 18 say: How precious it is, Lord, to realize that you are thinking about me constantly! I can’t even count how many times a day your thoughts turn toward me. And when I awaken in the morning, you are still thinking of me!

The Christian Standard Version says: “God, how precious Your thoughts are to me; how vast their sum is! If I counted them, they would outnumber the grains of sand; when I wake up, I am still with you.”

In other words, the Psalmist said, “Lord, even when I am asleep You are thinking about me constantly, and when I awaken You are still thinking about me.

Dr. E. J. Young in his book about Psalm 139 said, “The thoughts of God of which David speaks are those which God has concerning David, thoughts which are constantly directed to him and which have embraced and do embrace him in the entirety of his life. These thoughts which have originated with God revel how great God is. They show that He is truly omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent…. It would seem that David is uttering his surprise at the power of the thoughts of God. The total impact which they make upon him is that of strength.”

We can find some of God’s thoughts toward us in Scripture, which is the record of the mind of God. But His loving care for us and continual thoughts of concern for us are beyond even the Scripture. They are infinite, and David calls them precious. 

God’s creation of you is wonderful; His agenda for you is established; and His thoughts about you are continual. All the energy of His omnipotence intersects with your life, your need, and your eternal purpose.

Let me end with these incredible words from the hymn, “O Worship the King.”

Thy bountiful care what tongue could recite?

It breathes in the air, it shines in the light.

It streams from the hills and descends to the plain,

And sweetly distills in the dew and the rain.

Frail children of dust, and feeble as frail,

In Thee do we trust nor find Thee to fail;

Thy mercies how tender, how firm to the end,

Our Maker, Defender, Redeemer, and Friend.

Thanks for digging into the Bible with me, and may God be with you until we meet again.

The post More Than Wonderful – Part 4 appeared first on RobertJMorgan.com.

I Need Help with My Quiet Time

I rise before the dawning of the morning, and cry for help; I hope in your Word. My eyes are awake through the night watches, that I may meditate on Your Word.

Psalm 119:147-148

Introduction

This is for everyone who says, “I need help with my Quiet Time. By Quiet Time, I mean the practice of having a daily appointment with the Lord, a regular period of daily Bible study and prayer. Some people call this the practice of having daily devotions. Others call it the Morning Watch. It’s the missing vital ingredient in many Christian lives, and today I’d like to approach this from three different angles. First, I’d like to share a word of personal testimony on this subject. Second, I’d like to show you some Scriptures that address this topic in the Bible. Third, I want to share with you a handful of practical ideas and suggestions for having a meaningful Quiet Time on your own.

A Personal Testimony

By way of testimony, I’m grateful to the Lord for several influences that helped me establish this practice when I was younger.

The first influence, though I wasn’t aware of it at the time, was my father. As I grew up, I often saw him reading his Bible at night; and when I was barely old enough to read, he bought me a little Bible which I kept beside my bed, and in this way I learned as a child to read the Scriptures daily.

That didn’t mean that I was actively having a meaningful Quiet Time, and as I grew older I got away from close daily fellowship with the Lord and grew confused, as young people often do. In my confusion, I enrolled at Columbia Bible College in South Carolina. It was on my second night there that I surrendered my life to the Lord for His service, and it was there I began to learn the importance of the Quiet Time. 

In fact, student life was, at that time in the early 1970s, very regimented, and the daily Quiet Time was a required part of our schedule. We were awakened every morning at 6:15 by a bell loud enough to call the fire department. We had a half-hour to shower, shave, and dress, then another bell would ring, signaling our Quiet Time. We had half an hour every morning, from 6:45 to 7:15, and then a third bell would clang, for breakfast. For three years that was my college routine, and it established my Quiet Time habit for life. But I’ll have to say that at first I wasn’t too excited about it. I liked to stay up late, and sometimes I’d just sit there during my Quiet Time period in a dead sleep.

Then one day a man came to preach in our chapel services. He spoke in the pulpit like a machine gun, with a rapid fire, crystal-clear delivery with a British accent, and he delivered expositions on interesting passages of Scripture. He had spiritual power about him, and after chapel one day I went up to him—his name was Stephen Olford—and I asked him if he had any advice for a young man contemplating going into the ministry.

“Yes,” he said with the same dramatic delivery I had heard in the pulpit. “Never, never, never miss your Quiet Time.”

That’s all he said. But that was enough. I began to realize that there must be something important about this half-hour between the bells.

It was shortly after that when another influence came into my life. Though a mutual friend, I had the opportunity of spending several seasons of extended time with a woman who described to us how important the Quiet Time was to her. One day, when I was asking her about it, she said, “Robert, do you have the notebook habit?” I didn’t know what the notebook habit was. So she told me about her little loose-leaf notebook made of leather. She said she kept wearing it out, but she knew a leather crafter who kept repairing it for her. There she would record the thoughts God gave her each day as she studied her Bible. 

That very day I found a stationary shop and bought a notebook, and it’s been a lifesaver to me ever since. 

Then I came upon another set of influences. I became interested in Christian biography and autobiography, and over and over, as I read about the lives and ministries of great Christian men and women, I discovered they all had one thing in common. They maintained a Quiet Time habit. I’ll give you some examples:

Missionary and author Isobel Kuhn, in her book In the Arena, wrote about a time when she was a student at Moody Bible Institute and found herself so busy with school and work demands she was in danger of quenching her devotional life. Other students were facing similar problems. So they met together and Isobel suggested they sign a covenant—not a vow, but a statement of intention—to this effect: “I suggested our making a covenant with the Lord to spend an hour a day (for about a year) in the Lord’s presence, in prayer or reading the Word. The purpose was to form the habit of putting God in the centre of our day and fitting the work of life around Him, rather than letting the day’s business occupy the central place and trying to fix a Quiet Time with the Lord somewhere shoved into the odd corner or leisure moment.” Only about nine people signed the covenant to begin with, but the news spread and others began to join. For Isobel, the major problem became finding a quiet place. She wrote, “The only place I could find where I would disturb no one was the cleaning closet! So each morning I stole down the hall, entered the closet, turned the scrubbing pail upside down, sat on it, and with mops and dust rags hanging around my head, I spent a precious half-hour with the Master. The other half-hour had to be found at the end of the day.”Another missionary to China, Bertha Smith, wrote an absolutely fascinating story of her life. It was bitterly cold in her part of China. During the day she wore thirty pounds of clothing, and at night she slept under heavy bedding and with a hot water bottle. But her challenge came in the early morning hour when she wanted to rise before others so she could have her Quiet Time before the scores of interruptions that each day brought. She would struggle in the darkness to put on her thirty pounds of clothing, then break the ice to wash her face in the cold water, and then she would slip out to a particular haystack where she should rake aside the frosted part of the hay, kneel down, and spend time with the Lord before the sun came up.The great Puritan, Thomas Watson, wrote: “The best time to converse with God is before worldly occasions stand knocking at the door to be let in: The morning is, as it were, the cream of the day, let the cream be taken off, and let God have it. Wind up thy heart towards heaven at the beginning of the day, and it will go the better all the day after.”Here is what one of his biographers said about William Carey, the “Father of Modern Missions” who served many years in the land of Burma: “He found God specially near among the flowers and shrubs of a garden. In the walled garden of the mission house at Serampore, he built an arbor which he called his ‘bower.’ There at sunrise, before tea, and at the time of full moon when there was the least danger from snakes, he meditated and prayed, and the Book which he ceaselessly translated for others was his own source of strength and refreshment.”In the biography of missionary physician, L. Nelson Bell, John Pollock writes: “Most important of all was Nelson Bell’s discipline of devotional life. Early every morning he had a cup of coffee and went to his desk for about an hour of Bible study and prayer. He set himself to master the content and meaning of the Bible, devising such study schemes as looking up every Old Testament reference which occurs in the New Testament and typing it out. Then he turned to prayer, for friends, colleagues, and patients, praying especially for every patient listed for operation that day… This cycle of reading and prayer did not strike Nelson as formidable but vital.”

Those are just a sampling of things that I observed as I read the stories of great men and women, and so it’s no wonder that my appreciation increased for the importance of the Quiet Time. And so, by God’s grace, this is a habit that I’ve maintained since 1971. I can’t say that I’ve never missed a day, because I have. Occasionally I still do. But by and large, I consider this the most important habit of my life and I frankly think I would collapse without it. It provides daily nourishment for my soul just like food and water for the body.

A Biblical Mandate

Now we come to the second angle on this subject: What does the Bible say? Let’s begin with the prophet Daniel. Everyone knew about his faithfulness to his daily devotions and to his prayer time. His enemies schemed against him by persuading the king to issue a prohibition against prayer. Look at Daniel 6:10 and notice especially the last seven words of the verse:

Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went home. And in his upper room, with his windows open toward Jerusalem, he knelt down on his knees three times that day, and prayed and gave thanks before His God, as was his custom since early days.

As was his custom since early days! This was a lifelong habit. I suppose Daniel rose in the morning for his Quiet Time, then went to his office and worked through the morning before coming home at lunch where he also found a few minutes for prayer. And then at the close of day, his work behind him, he spent time with the Lord before going to bed. That was his lifelong habit.

Now look at the example of one greater than Daniel in Mark 1:35: Now in the morning, having risen a long while before daylight, [Jesus] went out and departed to a solitary place; and there He prayed.

And finally, look at Matthew 6:6: “But when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.”

The old versions say, “Go into your closet.” I still like that old translation. I remember visiting London with my wife, Katrina, and taking a tour of the house of John Wesley, the famous evangelist and the founder of the Methodist movement. On the second floor was Wesley’s bedroom, and attached to the bedroom was a little room about the size of a closet with nothing in it except a small table and chair and a little window. This was Wesley’s prayer closet, and it was called the powerhouse of Methodism.

The actual Greek word Matthew used occurs four times in the New Testament, and it means a storage room, a pantry, a spare stable in the barn, a root cellar. In those days, large families tended to live together in rather small houses. There was very little privacy. The only room not inhabited would be the storage room. Jesus was advising us to find a quiet, private place and use it as a place to meet secretly with the God of the universe. That’s what a Quiet Time is.

Now I need to say two words of warning.

First, it’s important to realize that a daily Quiet Time does not represent the totality of our fellowship with God. It doesn’t mean that we can meet God in the morning and then leave Him there in the closet while we go into the day. The Bible tells us to pray without ceasing. In other words, communion and fellowship with God is the constant privilege of the Christian.

Second, it’s important to realize that a daily Quiet Time is not simply a routine or a ritual. It’s a relationship. We meet Christ at the cross, and we call that conversion. We meet with Him in the closet, and we call that conversation. At the cross is where we come to know Christ, and in the closet is where we grow to know Him better.

Exodus 33:11 says that Moses met with the Lord face to face, as a man speaks with His friend.

If I may go back to my college days for just a moment, it was just as I was learning this habit that Ralph Carmichael wrote a song about it that was popular during those days. 

There is a QUIET PLACE

Far from the rapid pace,

Where God can soothe my troubled mind.

Sheltered by tree and flow’r,

There in my quiet hour,

With Him, my cares are left behind.

Whether a garden small

Or on a mountain tall

New strength and courage there I find;

Then from this quiet place,

I go prepared to face

A new day with love for all mankind.

A Practical Plan

Now I’d like to devote a moment offering some practical suggestions as to the daily Quiet Time. How do we do it? 

First, remember the purpose of the Quiet Time. It is essentially a conversation, a time of fellowship, a daily meeting or appointment with the Lord. It isn’t a complicated thing, and the simpler we can keep it the better. It isn’t even always necessary to have a Bible. Sometimes it’s nice just to go for a walk and spend some time meditating on some verse of Scripture and thinking it through, and then talking to the Lord about it and praying over the things that concern you. Usually, however, it’s very helpful to have a Bible, preferably a newer translation. And remember that you aren’t reading your Bible to get through a certain amount of Scripture or to prepare a sermon or to develop a Bible Study lesson. You’re going to the Bible to find nourishment for your soul. Psalm 37:3-4 says: “Feed on His faithfulness. Delight yourself also in the Lord.” That’s a good definition of Quiet Time.

Second, have a procedure for your Quiet Time. I like to follow a two-step plan. First, I open God’s Word and, after a brief prayer asking for His blessing, I start reading where I left off the day before. I don’t try to read a certain number of verses or chapters; I just read until I find a verse that speaks to me. Then I begin praying at the point of that verse, and move into a time of prayer. It’s a conversation. The Lord speaks to me through His Word, then I speak to Him in prayer. And it’s through this sort of daily conversation that we get to know Him better.

Third, use a pen. As I said earlier, I like to keep a little notebook. It’s divided into two parts. The first part is my journal. Every morning I come to my desk. I have a cup of coffee and my Bible, and I open my journal and put down the date. Then I might or might now write something about my day or how I’m feeling. Usually I make a little entry of some kind. But then I just put down the Scripture reference that I’m reading, and as I read through the passage I make notes. I find this an enormous help. I also use a wide-margin Bible, and I use a pencil for that. 

I find my notebook an incredible aid. However, a notebook isn’t necessary, and I’d like to give you a simpler alternative. Try using the margin of your Bible. Suppose, for example, you are reading through the Gospel of John. Beside John 1:1, put today’s day—11/7/22, for example. Then start there and read through the passage, marking anything that is of interest until you find just the verse that speaks to your soul for that day. Let’s say that it is verse 16: “From the fullness of His grace we have all received one blessing after another” (NIV). Circle that verse and end your reading there. The next day, put the new date beside John 1:17 and read on until you find that day’s verse, then circle it. And so forth.

For a prayer list, you can use the flyleaf of your Bible or a slip of paper in the back cover. Or you can just use a mental list. I’m not sure that our Lord took a paper list with Him when He rose early on that morning in Capernaum and retreated to the nearby mountains. Perhaps it would work better for you just to say, “Lord, guide me today to those things You want me to pray about.” 

Again, simplicity is the rule. The Word of God and prayer. Going into the closet and meeting with the Father in secret. A notebook works for me, but don’t feel like you have to do it the way I do. Find the method that works best for you.

Fourth, have a place and a regular time. As I read through the Gospels, it seems to me Jesus had two places He used for His closet. When He was in the north of Israel, He would retreat into the mountains to be alone. But where would He go when He was in Jerusalem? John 18:2 says that He would often go out of the city, across the Kidron Valley, and into an Olive orchard which was apparently owned by a friend who gave Him access to it. The place was called Gethsemane and Judas led the soldiers there to arrest Jesus for He knew that Christ often went there late at night or perhaps early in the morning for His Quiet Time.

For you it might be the kitchen table, or the front seat of your car, or your bedside at night. And that brings up another question. Does it have to be in the morning? No. If the evening is better for you, or the midnight hour, or the noon hour during your lunch break, that’s fine. We each need to find the routine that works for us. 

Some people say, “Can I have my Quiet Time at night?” Absolutely. In fact, in Hebrew culture, the day began the night before. Here in our society, we think of the day beginning with sunrise; but the Jewish people thought of the day beginning at sunset. The Jewish Sabbath, for example, begins at sunset on Saturday night and extends into the next day. Genesis chapter 1 says, “The evening and the morning were the first day,” etc. 

They understood the fact that whatever you are thinking about when you go to sleep is what will reside on your subconscious mind all through the night hours and will determine our mental mood and makeup for the next day. So if it works for you to have your devotions at night, that’s perfectly all right.

Now, whenever I speak on this subject, the question comes up—what about those times in life when our schedules are out of our control. Sometimes, despite our very best efforts, we go through periods of life in which we have a difficult time maintaining a habit such as I’ve described. This is especially true of mothers of preschoolers.

In my reading, I was intrigued with the testimony of Rosalind Goforth, who was a mother and a busy missionary in China. She was very eager to maintain her Quiet Time habit, but she was greatly frustrated by the fact that no matter how early she got up and how quiet she tried to be, one or more of her children woke up, and the daily circus just started that much earlier. So she finally just kept a small Bible or testament with her all the time, and she learned to take those odd moments all through the day to memorize Scripture. That way, she had it available for meditation all day long, and she just turned each day into one long 24-hour Quiet Time.

My wife, Katrina, however, had a different idea about it. She was a stay-at-home mother with three small children; but she sat them down one day and had a talk with them and said something to this effect: “Now, girls, I want to be a good mother, and to be a good mother who is kind and patient, I need to spend time with the Lord each day. So every afternoon I’m going to have my Quiet Time, and that’s going to be your alone time in your rooms. You can sleep or nap or read or play quietly by yourselves, but you are not to come and interrupt me—and if you do I’ll break your necks.” I’m really not sure she said that last part, but whatever she said worked, and she was able to maintain her Quiet Time even during that phase of her life.

Finally, exercise perseverance. A world-famous pianist once said: “When I miss a day of practice, I can always tell it. If I miss two days, the critics will pick it up. If I miss three days, the audience will notice it.”

I feel the same way about my Quiet Time.  Let’s be like the Psalmist who said, I rise before the dawning of the morning, and cry for help; I hope in your Word. My eyes are awake through the night watches, that I may meditate on Your Word.

The post I Need Help with My Quiet Time appeared first on RobertJMorgan.com.

More Than Wonderful – Part 3

A Study of Psalm 139

Introduction

One of the writers I follow is Joel Rosenberg, who is an expert on what’s happening in the Middle East, both in Israel and in the Islamic world. He tells a story he researched, and which I believe, of two Christians driving a car full of Bibles down a mountain in a remote area of Iran. It was a distant, bleak Iranian location. The steering wheel suddenly jammed, and they had to bring their car to a stop. Suddenly an old man began knocking on the car window, asking where the books were. The two men in the car were confused and asked what books he wanted, and he told them he wanted the books about Jesus.

They began talking to the man and learned an angel had recently appeared to him in a dream or vision and shared the story about Jesus. The man later discovered that everyone in his village had experienced the same dream. They had all believed in Christ as much as they could, but they needed more information. That’s when the old man had another dream in which he was told to walk down the mountain and stand beside the road, and somebody would bring him books about Jesus. The man did so, and here came the supply of Bibles in a car that came to a sudden stop in the road. The Bibles were in the very language spoken by the village.

One of the reasons I believe that story is because there are so many reports coming from so many sources of God speaking to Muslims through dreams. 

But there’s another lesson, which these two men in the car discovered for themselves. Wherever we go, the Lord Jesus is already there. He has gone ahead of us. He goes before us geographically. He goes before us in terms of time. He goes before us in terms of His work. He is everywhere, and even if we go to the ends of the earth, we’ll find He has been there all along.

Review

That’s the wonderful message of the second paragraph of Psalm 139. This podcast series is a study through this Psalm. In the first episode, we looked at the overarching nature of Psalm 139.  I said: “Psalm 139 tells us our powerful God is very personal; and our personal God is very powerful. He is both limitless and He is loving. He is infinite, but intimate. He is the one who knows you best, and He’s the one who loves you most. His universal attributes intersect with your personal situations on a constant basis. His divine traits converge with your daily trials, and He knows how to care for you. No one ever cares for you like Jesus.”

The 24 verses of this Psalm divide into four parts. The first six verses, which we looked at last time, talk about God’s omniscience and you. God knows everything, and He knows everything about you and me, and, as I said, the One who knows us best loves us the most. Let me read those verses from the Living Bible:

O Lord, You have examined my heart and know everything about me.  2  You know when I sit or stand. When far away You know my every thought.  3  You chart the path ahead of me and tell me where to stop and rest. Every moment You know where I am.  4  You know what I am going to say before I even say it.  5  You both precede and follow me and place Your hand of blessing on my head. 6  This is too glorious, too wonderful to believe! 

Scripture

Now today we’re coming to the second paragraph, which has to do with God’s omnipresence and you—God is everywhere and we can never be anywhere in which He is absent. That’s verses 7-12, which say:

7  I can never be lost to Your Spirit! I can never get away from my God!  8  If I go up to heaven, You are there; if I go down to the place of the dead, You are there.  9  If I ride the morning winds to the farthest oceans,  10  even there Your hand will guide me, Your strength will support me.  11  If I try to hide in the darkness, the night becomes light around me.  12  For even darkness cannot hide from God; to You the night shines as bright as day. Darkness and light are both alike to You.

Let’s just take that passage, one wonderful line after the next.

I Can Never Be Lost To Your Spirit!

Verse 7 says in the English Standard Version: “Where shall I go from Your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from Your presence?”

These are rhetorical questions because the answer is “nowhere.” But there are two aspects of this. There may be infinite aspects of this, but when it comes to the quality of God’s nearness and pervasiveness, there are two clear dimensions to it.

J. Scott Duvall and J. Daniel Hays, in their book, God’s Relational Presence: The Cohesive Center of Biblical Theology, made a point I’d never considered exactly as they put it. They point out there is a difference between God’s omnipresence and God’s presence.

We often use the prefix omni- to describe some of God’s attributes. The word “omni” means “all,” so His omnipresence is His presence everywhere. But Duvall and Hays say there is a difference between God’s presence and His omnipresence.

In my own thinking, I had more or less considered those terms as synonyms. God’s presence is everywhere, and He is omnipresent. But let me quote from these two scholars:

[There is an] important distinction between God’s presence and His omnipresence. The Old Testament, for example, certainly does affirm God’s omnipresence, but on the other hand, Moses does not remove his sandals and fearfully hide his face in front of every bush that he encounters in the wilderness. There is something spectacularly special and unique about that particular bush in Exodus 3, because God is present in a very intense way in that particular flaming bush. 

Likewise, while God’s omnipresence fills all the mountains of the world, the one is Exodus 19 is quite different: ‘Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the Lord descended on it in fire….’” 

In other words, there are two aspects to God’s presence. There is His essential presence, which fills Heaven and Earth. And there is His relational or personal presence, which brings Him close to us so we can know Him, draw near to Him, and live in His presence through grace.

In terms of His essential presence or His omnipresence, God’s essence fills the seen and unseen realms and beyond. King Solomon said, “Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain You.” 

One of the most important verses in all the Bible on this subject is Jeremiah 23:23-24: Am I only a God nearby, declares the Lord, and not a God far away? Who can hide in the secret places so that I cannot see them? declares the Lord. Do not I fill heaven and earth, declares the Lord. 

It’s that last phrase I want you to think about. The Lord tells us that He fills heaven and earth. Heaven refers to the invisible realm, of which we know only a little, only what the Bible tells us. It’s invisible to us at the present moment. It’s the world of angelic beings and heavenly hosts, and it’s the realm of New Jerusalem. 

The seen realm, that which is visible to us, is our current physical world and universe.

Stephen Charnock in his massive book about God said, “By filling heaven and earth is meant therefore a filling it with His essence. No place can be imagined that is deprived of the presence of God and therefore when the Scripture anywhere speaks of the presence of God, it joins heaven and earth together.”  

This is a great mystery to me, and I don’t understand much about it. It has to do with the incorporeality of God. God is not a material body, but rather he is spiritual. God is spirit, and His spirit fills Heaven and earth, the unseen and the seen realms.

That is God’s omnipresence or His essential presence filling all reality.

But Jeremiah 23 also talks about God’s personal presence, His relational presence. He is a God who is nearby. 

Going back to Duvall and Hays,—they would say the relational presence of God is the underlying theme of Scripture. They begin their book like this:

Our basis thesis is that the Triune God desires to have a personal, encountering relationship with His people and enters into His creation in order to facilitate that relationship. Thus the Bible begins with God’s presence relating to His people in the garden (Genesis) and ends with God’s presence relating to His people in the garden (Revelation). This holy, intense, powerful presence of God appears to Moses in the burning bush and on Mount Sinai, and then enters into the tabernacle (and later into the temple) so that God can dwell among His people. Indeed, the presence of God dwelling among His people is foundational to His covenant with them…. Jesus, Immanuel (God with us) appears. The incarnation brings to a climax the relational presence of God… In Acts, after Jesus’ ascension, the Holy Spirit comes to dwell within each believer, just as the holy presence of God dwelt in the tabernacle or temple… The entire story culminates at the end of Revelation, where the presence of God is once again in Jerusalem (the New Jerusalem) and in the garden, relating to His people. This ‘megatheme” drives the biblical story.

To the Psalmist in Psalm 139, this is very wonderful. He exclaims, 7 I can never be lost to your Spirit! I can never get away from my God! 

I wrote an entire book about this, entitled Always Near: 10 Ways to Delight in the Closeness of God. In one chapter, I wrote about the famous evangelist Dwight Moody. What was the secret of his power? At his memorial service in 1899, a friend said, “He walked with God, and so did not have to turn out his way to speak to Him. I have been driving with him off on some retired road about Northfield. We would be talking together, when, suddenly, he would pause for a moment and speak to God just as naturally as he would speak to a friend.”

That’s what the Psalmist meant when he said, “I can never be lost to Your Spirit! I can never get away from my God.”

If I Go Up to Heaven, You Are There

The next verse, Psalm 139:8 says, “If I go up to the heavens, you are there.” Perhaps David was thinking, if I travel as far as I can see—which is into the realm of the stars—you will still be with me.” I don’t know if David had that in mind, but it certainly comes to our minds these days when people – even tourists – are going into space. Perhaps you know that when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first two men to walk on the moon, they did something secretly—something very special—moments before they did so. Buzz Aldrin unpacked a little package of bread and wine that had been prepared by his church. Before stepping out of their lunar lander, Buzz read from John 15, and took the cup and the wine. The first food ever consumed on the moon was the elements of the Lord’s Supper. Even on the barren surface of the moon, which no human footprints had ever touched until that day, the Lord was already there, present, waiting on them.

But perhaps David also had in mind His eternal Home when He said, “If I go up to the heavens, you are there.” In Psalm 23, he said, “And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” And yet he knew that when he died, while his spirit would wing upward, his body would be entombed in the earth until the resurrection day. So he wrote, “If I go down to the place of the dead, You are there.” 

The Hebrew word “sheol” is used here. It was the common Old Testament word for the afterlife.

In other words, the presence and the omnipresence of God was a comfort to David when he thought about living and when he thought about dying. When the end of his earthly life came, his fellowship with God would continue because God was already on the other side. This is the point the apostle Paul made when he talked about being absent from the body and present with the Lord. According to Paul, who had more biblical and revelatory knowledge and who lived and taught after the resurrection of Jesus, leaving this world as a Christian tremendously enhances our awareness and enjoyment of God’s presence. Absent from the body—present with the Lord!

Verses 9-10 says, “If I ride the morning winds to the farthest oceans, even there Your hand will guide me, Your strength will support me.”

King David was probably imagining being able to be airborne like a bird, flying on the winds that blew from the east and which would take him as far as anyone could imagine over the endless—or what to David seemed endless—waters of the Mediterranean Sea, which formed Israel’s western border.

What David could only vaguely imagine, we now do on a regular basis—ride in the vessels of the sky, sometimes to the ends of the earth.

If I Ride the Morning Winds

Verses 9 and 10 say: If I ride the morning winds to the farthest oceans, 10 even there your hand will guide me, your strength will support me.

Author Laura Thomas is a noted Christian fiction writer, a wife, and a mother. She grew up in the United Kingdom, but her father brought her whole family as emigrants to Canada. She said, 

We emigrated from the UK to Canada, which is now unbelievably 25 years ago. A new life in a new country on a new continent. My dad gave us these verses [Psalm 139:9-10] as we ventured off chasing our dream ‘on the far side of the sea’ with our toddler in tow and many unknowns ahead of us.

And even a quarter century after the fact, when I read these words [Psalm 139:9-10] I still feel a flutter of butterflies in my belly. They evoke memories of our courageous days and how we trusted God completely to provide a job and a home and a community for us to embrace. And He did. Of course, He did. He is always faithful.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but this verse brought the sweetest comfort on both sides—to us as we journeyed into our brand-new life and to our families as they bid us farewell. It was not only reassuring for us to remember God was with us and would be our Guide always, but it also gave tremendous peace to the family we left behind knowing our Heavenly Father would be watching over us even as we were out of their sight….. Travel is not an issue for the omnipresent One.

Now as parents of three grown kids in their twenties who have all moved away to follow dreams of their own, I appreciate these verses afresh knowing God sees them, guides them, loves them.

As I read Laura’s testimony about this, I felt frustrated, a little cheated, that I had not also learned these verses in childhood. What a blessing for every child to memorize and take into life with them the powerfully assuring words of Psalm 139:9-10: 

In the English Standard Version, these verses say: “If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there Your hand shall lead me and Your right hand shall hold me.

Even if we are as far from home as we can ever imagine, on the side of the nation or on the other side of the world or on the other side of the stars—God has two hands around us. One is guiding us and the other is holding us.

Now, let’s finish this paragraph with verses 11-12:

If I Try to Hide in the Darkness

The Psalmist said: 11 If I try to hide in the darkness, the night becomes light around me. 12 For even darkness cannot hide from God; to you the night shines as bright as day. Darkness and light are both alike to you.

The word “hide” in the Hebrew is actually the word “bruise” or “overwhelm.” If the darkness tries to bruise me or overwhelm me—if I am overwhelmed in the darkness, the night becomes light around me.

Rick Hamlim is a great devotional writer who served for many years as executive editor of Guideposts. He said that a number of years ago he ended up in the hospital for two weeks with a mysterious lung infection – this was long before COVID. The doctors were baffled, and his hospital room was filled with specialists of all kinds. Rick was having great difficulty breathing, and it was hard to answer all their questions between gulps of air. He became very frightened and discouraged. 

He wrote:

But the one thing I remembered, as I drifted in and out of a fitful sleep, was my twenty-five-year-old son, Timothy, reading the words of a psalm by my bedside.

Timothy left the second week, heading to South Africa for ten months of mission work. Fortunately, I came home at the end of that week, my fever gone, my lungs able to function again on their own, my energy returning. The doctors still couldn’t give me a diagnosis, but that was all right. “They kept me alive,” I told friends. “Prayers healed me.”

I still wondered, thought, about that prayer by my bedside…. Had it even happened. I emailed Tim, “Did you read a psalm to me in the hospital?”

“Yes, Dad,” he replied. 

It seems the words that had lodged in Rick’s mind were: “Even the darkness is not dark to Thee, the night is bright as the day; for the darkness is as light with Thee.”

There are times when the darkness can overwhelm us, whether it’s sickness, loneliness, depression, fear, or whatever it is. But God’s presence is with us; His omnipresence is around us; and even the night becomes as bright as the day.

It’s really summed up in a verse David knew very well. He was a great student of the Torah—the first five books of the Old Testament. And there at the end of Deuteronomy was the famous verse given to Joshua, as it’s put in the old King James Version: “Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them: for the Lord thy God, He it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee” (Deuteronomy 31:6).

Conclusion

We’re halfway through Psalm 139, and we’ve learned something about how the omniscience and omnipresence of God intersects with our lives. Next week, we’ll look at God’s omnipotence—His limitless power and might, as we study verses 13-18.

The post More Than Wonderful – Part 3 appeared first on RobertJMorgan.com.

Jesus, Who Do You Think You Are?

A Study of John 8

One morning a few years ago I got up, took a shower, pulled on a pair of jeans, and walked through the house for some reason. To my astonishment, I found a woman standing in my living room. I’d never seen her before. She was just there alone. I stood frozen for a moment and then I asked the only logical question one could ask: “Who are you?” 

Well, it all turned out to be fine. She was meeting one of my grandchildren, who had welcomed her into the house and then ran off to get something. All was well that ended well, but I’ve never forgotten how startled I was to see her and asking that question: Who are you? There are times in life when that’s the best question we can ask.

One day Jesus Christ showed up in Galilee doing things that no one else had ever done and saying things no one else had ever said, and that’s the question that was on everyone’s lips. And that brings us to our study today in the eighth chapter of the Gospel of John. Turn with me to John 8, and let’s take a deep dive into this chapter starting with these two verses.

Look at John 8:25: “Who are You?” they asked.Notice how curiosity turned to cynicism in verse 53: “Who do You think You are?”

Who are You? Who do you think You are?

For 2000 years, that question has been at the core of philosophy, religion, and human history. That’s the subject of our passage today. First, I want to give you a word of explanation. We’re coming to a very long passage of Scripture today. So brace your mind to follow along, preferably in your own Bible. And if you’ve read this passage before, imagine you’ve never even heard of it until now.

As I’ll point out to you as we go along, Jesus gives three different sermons in John 8. Each one is short, they grow in intensity, and they provoke a growing hatred toward Him.

Scripture Reading

Our Lord’s first message is in John 8:12-20:

12  When Jesus spoke again to the people, He said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows Me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

13  The Pharisees challenged Him, “Here You are, appearing as Your own witness; Your testimony is not valid.”

14  Jesus answered, “Even if I testify on My own behalf, My testimony is valid, for I know where I came from and where I am going. But you have no idea where I come from or where I am going.  15  You judge by human standards; I pass judgment on no one.  16  But if I do judge, My decisions are true, because I am not alone. I stand with the Father, who sent Me.  17  In your own Law it is written that the testimony of two witnesses is true.  18  I am one who testifies for Myself; my other witness is the Father, who sent Me.”

19  Then they asked him, “Where is Your father?”

“You do not know Me or my Father,” Jesus replied. “If you knew Me, you would know My Father also.”  20  He spoke these words while teaching in the temple courts near the place where the offerings were put. Yet no one seized Him because His hour had not yet come.

The Lord’s second message is John 8:21-30:

21  Once more Jesus said to them, “I am going away, and you will look for Me, and you will die in your sin. Where I go, you cannot come.”

22  This made the Jews ask, “Will He kill himself? Is that why He says, ‘Where I go, you cannot come’?”

23  But He continued, “You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world.  24  I told you that you would die in your sins; if you do not believe that I am He, you will indeed die in your sins.”

25  “Who are you?” they asked.

“Just what I have been telling you from the beginning,” Jesus replied.  26  “I have much to say in judgment of you. But He who sent Me is trustworthy, and what I have heard from Him I tell the world.”

27  They did not understand that He was telling them about His Father.  28  So Jesus said, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He and that I do nothing on My own but speak just what the Father has taught Me.  29  The one who sent Me is with Me; He has not left Me alone, for I always do what pleases Him.”  30  Even as He spoke, many believed in Him.

The Lord’s third message is John 8:31-59:

31  To the Jews who had believed Him, Jesus said, “If you hold to My teaching, you are really My disciples.  32  Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

33  They answered Him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can You say that we shall be set free?”

34  Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin.  35  Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever.  36  So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.  37  I know that you are Abraham’s descendants. Yet you are looking for a way to kill Me, because you have no room for My word.  38  I am telling you what I have seen in the Father’s presence, and you are doing what you have heard from your father.”

39  “Abraham is our father,” they answered.

“If you were Abraham’s children,” said Jesus, “then you would do what Abraham did.  40  As it is, you are looking for a way to kill Me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. Abraham did not do such things.  41  You are doing the works of your own father.”

“We are not illegitimate children,” they protested. “The only Father we have is God Himself.”

42  Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I have come here from God. I have not come on My own; God sent Me.  43  Why is My language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say.  44  You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.  45  Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe Me!  46  Can any of you prove Me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe Me?  47  Whoever belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.”

48  The Jews answered Him, “Aren’t we right in saying that you are a Samaritan and demon-possessed?”

49  “I am not possessed by a demon,” said Jesus, “but I honor My Father and you dishonor Me.  50  I am not seeking glory for Myself; but there is one who seeks it, and He is the judge.  51  Very truly I tell you, whoever obeys My word will never see death.”

52  At this they exclaimed, “Now we know that You are demon-possessed! Abraham died and so did the prophets, yet You say that whoever obeys Your word will never taste death.  53  Are You greater than our father Abraham? He died, and so did the prophets. Who do You think You are?”

54  Jesus replied, “If I glorify Myself, My glory means nothing. My Father, whom you claim as your God, is the one who glorifies Me.  55  Though you do not know Him, I know Him. If I said I did not, I would be a liar like you, but I do know Him and obey His word.  56  Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing My day; he saw it and was glad.”

57  “You are not yet fifty years old,” they said to him, “and You have seen Abraham!”

58  “Very truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!”  59  At this, they picked up stones to stone Him, but Jesus hid Himself, slipping away from the temple grounds.

Well, we’ve just read the bulk of John 8! I can’t deal with this passage verse by verse or section by section, but I want to show you what we learn here about five aspects of Christ that are woven like five bright cords in and out of the fabric of this passage.

Christ’s Divine Nature

First, His eternality, His divinity. The term eternality means Christ is eternal, and the word divine comes from a Latin word meaning God. Jesus claimed to have been eternal, which means He was nothing less than almighty God. He was divine. He is deity.

This is implied by Jesus several times in these three discourses. Look at the way He began and ended these three discourses. In verse 12, He began by saying: “I AM the light of the world.” And He ended in verse 58 saying: “Before Abraham was born, I AM.” I AM was the great Old Testament name for God—in the Hebrew Jehovah, or, more accurately, Yahweh. By using this title, Jesus was claiming to be the eternal, self-existent, uncaused God.

Look at verse 14. Jesus said: “I know where I came from and where I am going.” And verse 23: “You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world.”In verse 38: “I am telling you what I have seen in the Father’s presence.”Verse 42: “I have come here from God.”

We have this kind of language throughout the Gospel of John, starting with the preamble of the Gospel: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Jesus claimed to have existed before His conception and birth, and He spoke of eternal life. As Moses said in Psalm 90, He is from everlasting to everlasting.

Let’s draw it like this.

It boggles our minds to contemplate, but you would logically expect God to be mind-boggling and full of wonders larger than our brains.

One of the greatest hymns ever written – it’s on my top five list – says:

Of the Father’s love begotten,

‘Ere the worlds began to be,

He is Alpha and Omega,

He the source the ending He,

Of the things that are, that have been,

That evermore will be.

The understanding that Jesus Christ is God Himself pierces church history like a needle and thread and goes all the way back to the pages of the Bible itself.

Christ’s Old Testament Appearances

Second, there’s a fascinating passage here about how Jesus appeared in the Old Testament. Let’s go back to it again. Look at verses 56-58, where Jesus told them: Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day; he saw it and was glad. “You are not yet fifty years old,” they said to Him, “and You have seen Abraham!” 

“Very truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!

This is very important. These verses tell us Abraham saw Jesus. I think Abraham saw Jesus a number of times because the language in the book of Genesis implies that God met with Abraham personally in the form of a man and talked with him.

Genesis 12:7 says, “The Lord appeared to Abram and said, ‘To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built an altar there to the Lord, who had appeared to him” (emphasis mine). This implies that God literally appeared to Abraham like a person meeting with another person.

Genesis 17:1 says, “When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Him.” And look at verse 22: “When He (God) had finished speaking with Abraham, God went up from him.” 

This is the language of visual presence. God appeared to Abraham, spoke to Him, and then went up from him.

Look at Genesis 18: “The Lord appeared to Abraham near the great trees of Mamre while he was sitting at the entrance to his tent in the heat of the day. Abraham looked up and saw three men standing nearly….”

As we continue reading Genesis 18, we discover that two of the men were angels, and the third was God in the form or appearance of a man, and they shared a meal with Abraham and talked with him. 

Now, no one has ever seen God the Father. He is invisible. So most biblical scholars will tell you these were a pre-Bethlehem appearance of God the Son. There really are a lot of these preincarnate appearances of Jesus Christ in the Old Testament. In those times Jesus was not truly a man—not a human being—but He manifested His presence in the form of a human. That’s why Jesus said, “Abraham saw My day, He saw Me and was glad.” And the skeptics said, “Are you claiming to have seen Abraham? He lived 2000 years ago, and you aren’t even 50 years old.” In response, Jesus said, “Before Abraham was born, I AM.”

Sometimes Jesus would show up in the Old Testament in the appearance of a human being. He was not a human. He had only one nature—He was divine; He was God. But He manifested the temporary appearance of a man—He projected the image of a man—to communicate to people like Abraham.

Christ’s Human Nature

But everything changed at the beginning of the Gospel era. The Holy Spirit came over the virgin Mary and she conceived through a miraculous virginal conception, and the eternal God the Son—Jesus Christ—at the moment of His conception and through the miracle of His birth became fully human.

This is the single most moment of extreme transformation or transmutation to ever occur in history. Before this moment, God the Son sometimes appeared as a human being. But through the miraculous conception and virgin birth, He actually became a human being. He assumed a dual nature—being both God and human

Let’s draw it like this…

Why this great change? Jesus became human so that He could die for the sake of the human race. God cannot die, but a human can die. He was lifted up on the cross, buried in the tomb, and resurrected on the third day.

When we see Him in the book of Revelation, He is ruling and reigning in His resurrected, glorified body, which tells us the two-fold nature of Jesus was not a temporary change. From the moment of His conception by the Holy Spirit in the womb of Mary, an eternal change took place in Jesus, and forever and ever He will be both divine and human, both God and man.

He left His Father’s Throne above

So free, so infinite His grace

Emptied Himself of all but love

And died for Adam’s helpless race.

Christ’s Sinless Nature

Now let’s add another important detail. Though Jesus was human as we are, yet there is one vital difference between Him and us. He was sinless, as He points out here in chapter 8.

Look at verse 28: The One who sent Me is with Me; He has not left Me alone, for I always do what pleases Him.

And verse 46: Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe in Me?

His sinlessness made it possible for Him to offer Himself as a perfect sacrifice for our sins. And that brings us to our final point.

Christ’s Mission of Redemption

Our Lord’s ministry, His mission of redemption—why He came to earth and took on this dual nature of being both God and Man.

Five times in this passage, Jesus claimed He had been sent to earth by God the Father.

Verse 16: I stand with the Father, who sent Me.Verse 18: My other witness is the Father, who sent Me.Verse 26: He who sent Me is trustworthy.Verse 29: The One who sent Me is with Me.Verse 42: I have not come on My own; God sent Me.

Jesus was here on a divine mission. As He said in verse 28, He came to be lifted up—lifted up on the cross where He would shed His blood for the sins of all of us.

Conclusion

Let’s finish our study with the two different reactions we see here to Christ. To those who place their faith in Him, there is forgiveness and eternal life.

Verse 12 says: I am the light of the world. Whoever follows Me will never walk in darkness, but will have the right of life.

But verse 24 says: I told you that you would die in your sins; if you do not believe that I am He, you will indeed die in your sins.

How wonderful is the first, and how terrible is the second! And either one or the other is true for you and me.

I’ve just finished reading a book that captivated me. In fact, I read it in two days. The title is Believing is Seeing, and it describes the life and observations of its author, Dr. Michael Guillen. He grew up in a Hispanic community in Los Angeles, and he knew by the second grade he wanted to be a scientist when he grew up. He went on to UCLA and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in physics and mathematics. At Cornell University, he earned a triple doctorate in various sciences. From there, he enrolled in Harvard, and then along the way he managed to become the science correspondent for CBS News and then for ABC News. He was one of the few journalists who went down in a tiny submarine in the Atlantic to cover the discovery of the Titanic. 

As Dr. Guillen pursued his studies of science, he gradually came to the realization that atheism could not supply an adequate intellectual basis for the complexity and functioning of the universe. He began to study many different religions, and finally his girlfriend (who later became his wife) persuaded him to read the Bible. For several years, he studied and reported on the most recent scientific discoveries while studying the Old and New Testament.

He became convinced of the logic behind the Scripture and by the wonder of Jesus Christ. Here is what Dr. Guillen wrote:

I confess it took me a long time to grasp this. My little, logical-centered worldview had a hard time wrapping its tiny arms around the paradoxical, translogical significance of the man-yet-God Jesus and His lowly-yet-heavenly sacrificial death.

But when I finally got it, it was a game changer. For me, it heralded the beginning of the end of my lifelong Atheism—and the end of the beginning of my intellectual and spiritual plunge into the deepest mysteries of the universe and life….

It took me years…because I…needed to settle a jillion questions before coming to a decision. But one day it finally became clear to me what that conclusion had to be.

It wasn’t an emotional experience for me. Rather, it the culmination of an intellectual dawning, a gradual awakening that had begun two decades earlier at Cornell University, when I—an unkempt, malnourished scientific monk—asked myself a simple but pointed question: How did this amazing, mostly invisible universe of ours come to be so amazing and mostly invisible?

The answer, I now concluded, had something to do with the magnificent and enigmatic stars, galaxies, and quasars I’d studied all my life. But it also had everything to do with the loving God who had spoke them into being… and the resurrected Jesus, who brought this loving but remote God down to earth, making it possible for me—for you, for anyone—to know Him personally.”

What will it be for you?

A stranger has popped into your life, and you have a simple question: Who are You?

His answer—I am God. I am eternal and showed up from time to time in the Old Testament in the form of a man. At Bethlehem, I actually became a man fully human and fully God. I am sinless, and I was sent to save you from your sins and give you eternal life so that no one will have to die in their sins.

He said:

I am the light of the world. Whoever follows Me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.

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