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At Home with Jesus – In Nazareth (Part 2)

At Home with Joseph and Mary – Part 2

The Bible says of the elementary-age Jesus, “And the child grew and became strong; he was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was on him” (Luke 2:40). 

Later, Luke described Jesus during His teenage years as being obedient to His parents and growing  “in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man” (Luke 2:52).

Mary was one of the godliest women who ever lived, and Joseph was an honest, wise, mature, hardworking craftsman. But the family of Jesus of Nazareth had its problems, the kind of pain and heartache every home encounters, and the idyllic scenes of our Lord’s childhood home fade into the background as the predicted sword begins its flight toward Mary’s heart (Luke 2:35).

Joseph and Mary began their marriage with accusations of immorality (Matthew 1:18) and a rugged road trip during which Mary went into labor and gave birth inside a cavern-like room. From the beginning the young family was targeted by death threats, causing them to flee for their lives (Matthew 2:13). Joseph and Mary traveled with their child to Egypt because Herod the Great, in his diseased mind, construed the baby of Bethlehem as a threat (Matthew 1:13). 

Later, after Herod’s death, the family returned to Israel and settled in Nazareth (Matthew 1:23). There, Joseph and Mary settled into homelife with Jesus and several other children. The names of the other boys are given in Matthew 13:54-57, in the passage about the response to Jesus teaching in Nazareth.

 “Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers?” they asked. “Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t his mother’s name Mary, and aren’t his brothers James, Joseph [named for his father], Simon and Judas [or Jude]? Aren’t all his sisters with us? 

In the Greek, the word “all” could mean “both.” So Jesus had four younger brothers and at least two sisters. 

To His schoolteachers in the synagogue, Jesus looked just like another boy. To His clients in the carpentry shop, He seemed like just another craftsman. As He grew older, she undoubtedly told Him about Gabriel’s message and about His unusual virgin birth. As Luke said, “Jesus grew in knowledge.” I can imagine He took long walks in the lower Galilean hills, pondering God’s calling on His life. 

Then one day news came that a spiritual revival had broken out along the banks of the Jordan River in Judea. A powerful preacher had arisen and people were comparing him to the prophet Elijah. Messianic talk was in the air. 

People from Galilee traveled down there, and many of them were returning with their lives changed. They said this man, John the Baptist, had plunged them into the river as a token of their repentance and spiritual transformation. Nothing like this had been seen in Israel for centuries. 

When Jesus arrived, John the Baptist, who was in the middle of a dynamic sermon, looked up and saw Him.

“Behold!” he said. “The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29 NKJV). Jesus offered Himself for baptism, and as He came out of the water the Holy Spirit descended on Him and anointed Him as the Messiah. The voice of the Father thundered from Heaven, saying, “You are My beloved Son.” (Mark 1:9-11 NKJV). 

Immediately the Holy Spirit compelled Jesus into the desert mountains, where He stayed for about six weeks. According to Luke 4:1-2, the devil came at the end of those forty days. I believe this is when God the Father fully revealed to Jesus His identity, His role, His mission, and His destiny. 

Jesus returned from Judea to His hometown of Nazareth. He now understood fully who He was and why He was on earth. He now knew His mission. On the next Sabbath, He went to the synagogue as usual. The day’s reading was from the scroll of Isaiah, and Jesus read the passage that described the predicted Messiah. He told them that He Himself was that prophetic Anointed One who had been sent into the world. 

Luke continues the story in Luke 4:28-31: 

All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff. But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way. Then he went down to Capernaum, a town in Galilee….

Jesus implied that even His own family had turned against Him. He said, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own town, among his relatives and in his own home” (Mark 6:4). 

According to Mark’s Gospel, His family followed Him and tried to track Him down, thinking, “He is out of His mind” (Mark 3:21). Even His mother, Mary, who understood better than anyone that God had a special plan for Jesus, was distraught. She probably found herself caught in the middle, like all of us do at some point or another. Mark wrote:

Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone to call him. A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, “Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you.”

“Who are my mother and my brothers?” he asked. Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.”

The whole family was frustrated, and in John 7 it came to a confrontation. John 7:1-8 (TLB) says:

After this, Jesus went to Galilee, going from village to village, for he wanted to stay out of Judea where the Jewish leaders were plotting his death. But soon it was time for the Tabernacle Ceremonies, one of the annual Jewish holidays, and Jesus’ brothers urged him to go to Judea for the celebration.

“Go where more people can see your miracles!” they scoffed. “You can’t be famous when you hide like this! If you’re so great, prove it to the world!” For even his brothers didn’t believe in him.

Jesus replied, “It is not the right time for me to go now. But you can go anytime and it will make no difference, for the world can’t hate you; but it does hate me, because I accuse it of sin and evil. 8 You go on, and I’ll come later when it is the right time.”

The next time we read anything about the family of Jesus in the Gospels, only His mother is one the scene, traumatized, standing near the cross and watching her firstborn writhe in anguish as He is tortured to death. The apostle John wrote in John 20:25-27:

Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved [the apostle John] standing nearby, he said to her, “Woman, here is your son,” and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.

Imagine being in a home in which the father died, the oldest Son quit his job just when they needed his income; and he left home hiking from village to village claiming to be God. His brothers feared He was mentally ill and delusional. Some of the children became prodigals and cynics (John 7:5), and rivalry broke out among the siblings (John 7:3-5). And before it was all over, this humble family faced the humiliating spectacle of the public execution of its most prominent member (John 19:26).

This is strangely encouraging, isn’t it? The home is like a magnifying glass in which everything is intensified. Emotions. Joys. Heartache. Fun. Sorrow. Life. Death. Everything!

That’s what happened to Mary’s family, but that is not the end of the story. 

After His resurrection, Jesus appeared on earth for another forty days, almost six weeks. He had a personal meeting with His brother, James (1 Corinthians 15:7). And then Jesus ascended into Heaven, and His followers gathered in the Upper Room for the next ten days. Acts 1:12-14 says:

Then the apostles returned to Jerusalem from the hill called the Mount of Olives, a Sabbath day’s walk from the city. When they arrived, they went upstairs to the room where they were staying. Those present were Peter, John, James and Andrew; Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew; James son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers.

It’s possible our Lord’s sisters were there too. When the Holy Spirit descended on the 120 believers on the day of Pentecost, it fell full force on the boys who had grown up in the same Nazareth home as Jesus. Our Lord’s family, who had encountered so much pain, were now bound together as the first generation of Spirit-filled believers in the inception of the church.

The Lord’s brother James became the leader of the church in Jerusalem. James was in the Upper Room. He later wrote the book of James in the later pages of the New Testament.  The next brother, Jude, became the writer of another New Testament book, the epistle of Jude, which comes just before the book of Revelation.As for the others, they became traveling evangelists who took their wives along, spreading the Gospel. 

One of the first historians of the early church was named Hegesippus. Eusebius quotes Hegesippus as saying that the nephews of Jesus were still living near Nazareth and ran into trouble with Roman authorities:

Still surviving of our Lord’s family were the grandsons of Jude, who was said to be His brother according to the flesh, and they were informed on [or betrayed to the authorities] as being descendants of David. The [Roman official] brought them before Domitian Caesar, who, like Herod, was afraid of the coming of Christ. 

…They were asked about Christ and His kingdom—its nature, origin, and time of appearance. They replied that it was not of this world or earthly but angelic and heavenly, and that it would be established at the end of the world when He would come in glory to judge the living and the dead and reward everyone according to his deeds. 

At this Domitian did not condemn them but, despising them as simple sorts, let them go free and ordered that the persecution against the church cease. After their release they became leaders of the churches, both for their testimony and because they were of the Lord’s family, and they lived into Trajan’s time due to the ensuing peace.

One man who has done incredible work on tracing the evidence for the descendants of the family of Joseph and Mary is Richard Bauckham, an English Anglican scholar. He wrote a book entitled Jude and the Relatives of Jesus in the Early Church. 

In the early third century, there was a Christian scholar named Julius Africanus. He wrote that the relatives of Jesus lived near Nazareth and were preaching the Gospel and using the genealogies of Christ as a way of explaining how Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament. They lived in a village near Nazareth and were called by a special title—“The Master’s People.”

Bauckham said, “The meaning is probably that members of the family of Jesus, traveling around the land of Israel and preaching the Gospel to their fellow Jews, used a family genealogy, like that in Luke 3, as a way of explaining the Christian claim that Jesus was the messianic Son of David.”

Bauckham believes that while Peter and Paul took the Gospel westward into Asia Minor and Europe, James the Lord’s brother and his teams took the Gospel eastward toward Asia and India. There are medieval sources that suggest members of Jesus’ family traveled as missionaries through Mesopotamia. 

And then we have one final witness to history. 

During the persecution of Christians in 250–251 under the emperor Decius, a certain Conon, a gardener on the imperial estate, was martyred in Pamphylia in Asia Minor. According to the acts of his martyrdom, when questioned in court as to his place of origin and his ancestry, he replied: ‘I am of the city of Nazareth in Galilee, I am of the family of Christ, whose worship I have inherited from my ancestors.’

Mary was one of the greatest, godliest, and wisest women who ever lived. And she is our shining example of the primary point I want to bring “home” to you– Expect Pain and Problems in Your Family; But Rely on Resurrection Power to Prevail in the End.

Embedded into this story are two powerful concepts around which we can organize our thoughts in times of perplexity—rehearsal and reversal.

Rehearsal

First, we have to rehearse all the Scriptures God gives us and keep them constantly in mind. The Lord spoke to her through her older relative Elizabeth (Luke 1:29-56); the shepherds, whose words “Mary treasured up…and pondered…in her heart” (Luke 2:19). She never forgot what Simeon and Anna told her in the temple when the baby Jesus was dedicated to the Lord (Luke 2:22-38), nor what Jesus told her at age twelve: “Why were you searching for me? Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house” (Luke 2:49).

Luke adds, “But they did not understand what he was saying to them…. But his mother treasured all these things in her heart” (Luke 2:50-51).

The Christian experience involves a wonderful lifetime of Bible exploration, and God has words for us that will nourish us each day and nurture us through every stress and strain. We can get through every difficulty by rehearsing all God says to us.

Reversal

And then there was the great reversal—the Resurrection of Jesus from the tomb. The Lord not only reversed death itself in a flash of Easter glory; He reversed the direction of those grieving and the duration of their lives; the circumstances around their morale and then mission; and even the course of human history.

Jesus wields resurrection power over the burdens we bear and the prayers we offer. The apostle Paul described resurrection power like this:

I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened [to] know… his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms… (Ephesians 1:18-20).

The same power that resurrected Jesus causes “everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them” (Romans 8:28 NLT).

He can do that; He has promised He will do that. He can turn things round, reverse the tide of the biography of life, and safeguard our hearts and minds with His peace (Philippians 4:7). One day while contemplating this, I wrote a little couplet:

Praise God who works all things for good for those who love His Name.

His Providential Hand shall turn all burdens into gain.

The Risen Christ has done this over and over for us. Your situation is unique, of course. And yet, it isn’t. The Lord can handle it. This remarkable Jesus of Nazareth, Mary’s boy, said:

In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.

(John 16:33)

The post At Home with Jesus – In Nazareth (Part 2) appeared first on RobertJMorgan.com.

At Home with Jesus

At Home with Joseph and Mary – Part 2

The Bible says of the elementary-age Jesus, “And the child grew and became strong; he was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was on him” (Luke 2:40). 

Later, Luke described Jesus during His teenage years as being obedient to His parents and growing  “in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man” (Luke 2:52).

Mary was one of the godliest women who ever lived, and Joseph was an honest, wise, mature, hardworking craftsman. But the family of Jesus of Nazareth had its problems, the kind of pain and heartache every home encounters, and the idyllic scenes of our Lord’s childhood home fade into the background as the predicted sword begins its flight toward Mary’s heart (Luke 2:35).

Joseph and Mary began their marriage with accusations of immorality (Matthew 1:18) and a rugged road trip during which Mary went into labor and gave birth inside a cavern-like room. From the beginning the young family was targeted by death threats, causing them to flee for their lives (Matthew 2:13). Joseph and Mary traveled with their child to Egypt because Herod the Great, in his diseased mind, construed the baby of Bethlehem as a threat (Matthew 1:13). 

Later, after Herod’s death, the family returned to Israel and settled in Nazareth (Matthew 1:23). There, Joseph and Mary settled into homelife with Jesus and several other children. The names of the other boys are given in Matthew 13:54-57, in the passage about the response to Jesus teaching in Nazareth.

 “Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers?” they asked. “Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t his mother’s name Mary, and aren’t his brothers James, Joseph [named for his father], Simon and Judas [or Jude]? Aren’t all his sisters with us? 

In the Greek, the word “all” could mean “both.” So Jesus had four younger brothers and at least two sisters. 

To His schoolteachers in the synagogue, Jesus looked just like another boy. To His clients in the carpentry shop, He seemed like just another craftsman. As He grew older, she undoubtedly told Him about Gabriel’s message and about His unusual virgin birth. As Luke said, “Jesus grew in knowledge.” I can imagine He took long walks in the lower Galilean hills, pondering God’s calling on His life. 

Then one day news came that a spiritual revival had broken out along the banks of the Jordan River in Judea. A powerful preacher had arisen and people were comparing him to the prophet Elijah. Messianic talk was in the air. 

People from Galilee traveled down there, and many of them were returning with their lives changed. They said this man, John the Baptist, had plunged them into the river as a token of their repentance and spiritual transformation. Nothing like this had been seen in Israel for centuries. 

When Jesus arrived, John the Baptist, who was in the middle of a dynamic sermon, looked up and saw Him.

“Behold!” he said. “The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29 NKJV). Jesus offered Himself for baptism, and as He came out of the water the Holy Spirit descended on Him and anointed Him as the Messiah. The voice of the Father thundered from Heaven, saying, “You are My beloved Son.” (Mark 1:9-11 NKJV). 

Immediately the Holy Spirit compelled Jesus into the desert mountains, where He stayed for about six weeks. According to Luke 4:1-2, the devil came at the end of those forty days. I believe this is when God the Father fully revealed to Jesus His identity, His role, His mission, and His destiny. 

Jesus returned from Judea to His hometown of Nazareth. He now understood fully who He was and why He was on earth. He now knew His mission. On the next Sabbath, He went to the synagogue as usual. The day’s reading was from the scroll of Isaiah, and Jesus read the passage that described the predicted Messiah. He told them that He Himself was that prophetic Anointed One who had been sent into the world. 

Luke continues the story in Luke 4:28-31: 

All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff. But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way. Then he went down to Capernaum, a town in Galilee….

Jesus implied that even His own family had turned against Him. He said, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own town, among his relatives and in his own home” (Mark 6:4). 

According to Mark’s Gospel, His family followed Him and tried to track Him down, thinking, “He is out of His mind” (Mark 3:21). Even His mother, Mary, who understood better than anyone that God had a special plan for Jesus, was distraught. She probably found herself caught in the middle, like all of us do at some point or another. Mark wrote:

Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone to call him. A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, “Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you.”

“Who are my mother and my brothers?” he asked. Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.”

The whole family was frustrated, and in John 7 it came to a confrontation. John 7:1-8 (TLB) says:

After this, Jesus went to Galilee, going from village to village, for he wanted to stay out of Judea where the Jewish leaders were plotting his death. But soon it was time for the Tabernacle Ceremonies, one of the annual Jewish holidays, and Jesus’ brothers urged him to go to Judea for the celebration.

“Go where more people can see your miracles!” they scoffed. “You can’t be famous when you hide like this! If you’re so great, prove it to the world!” For even his brothers didn’t believe in him.

Jesus replied, “It is not the right time for me to go now. But you can go anytime and it will make no difference, for the world can’t hate you; but it does hate me, because I accuse it of sin and evil. 8 You go on, and I’ll come later when it is the right time.”

The next time we read anything about the family of Jesus in the Gospels, only His mother is one the scene, traumatized, standing near the cross and watching her firstborn writhe in anguish as He is tortured to death. The apostle John wrote in John 20:25-27:

Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved [the apostle John] standing nearby, he said to her, “Woman, here is your son,” and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.

Imagine being in a home in which the father died, the oldest Son quit his job just when they needed his income; and he left home hiking from village to village claiming to be God. His brothers feared He was mentally ill and delusional. Some of the children became prodigals and cynics (John 7:5), and rivalry broke out among the siblings (John 7:3-5). And before it was all over, this humble family faced the humiliating spectacle of the public execution of its most prominent member (John 19:26).

This is strangely encouraging, isn’t it? The home is like a magnifying glass in which everything is intensified. Emotions. Joys. Heartache. Fun. Sorrow. Life. Death. Everything!

That’s what happened to Mary’s family, but that is not the end of the story. 

After His resurrection, Jesus appeared on earth for another forty days, almost six weeks. He had a personal meeting with His brother, James (1 Corinthians 15:7). And then Jesus ascended into Heaven, and His followers gathered in the Upper Room for the next ten days. Acts 1:12-14 says:

Then the apostles returned to Jerusalem from the hill called the Mount of Olives, a Sabbath day’s walk from the city. When they arrived, they went upstairs to the room where they were staying. Those present were Peter, John, James and Andrew; Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew; James son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers.

It’s possible our Lord’s sisters were there too. When the Holy Spirit descended on the 120 believers on the day of Pentecost, it fell full force on the boys who had grown up in the same Nazareth home as Jesus. Our Lord’s family, who had encountered so much pain, were now bound together as the first generation of Spirit-filled believers in the inception of the church.

The Lord’s brother James became the leader of the church in Jerusalem. James was in the Upper Room. He later wrote the book of James in the later pages of the New Testament.  The next brother, Jude, became the writer of another New Testament book, the epistle of Jude, which comes just before the book of Revelation.As for the others, they became traveling evangelists who took their wives along, spreading the Gospel. 

One of the first historians of the early church was named Hegesippus. Eusebius quotes Hegesippus as saying that the nephews of Jesus were still living near Nazareth and ran into trouble with Roman authorities:

Still surviving of our Lord’s family were the grandsons of Jude, who was said to be His brother according to the flesh, and they were informed on [or betrayed to the authorities] as being descendants of David. The [Roman official] brought them before Domitian Caesar, who, like Herod, was afraid of the coming of Christ. 

…They were asked about Christ and His kingdom—its nature, origin, and time of appearance. They replied that it was not of this world or earthly but angelic and heavenly, and that it would be established at the end of the world when He would come in glory to judge the living and the dead and reward everyone according to his deeds. 

At this Domitian did not condemn them but, despising them as simple sorts, let them go free and ordered that the persecution against the church cease. After their release they became leaders of the churches, both for their testimony and because they were of the Lord’s family, and they lived into Trajan’s time due to the ensuing peace.

One man who has done incredible work on tracing the evidence for the descendants of the family of Joseph and Mary is Richard Bauckham, an English Anglican scholar. He wrote a book entitled Jude and the Relatives of Jesus in the Early Church. 

In the early third century, there was a Christian scholar named Julius Africanus. He wrote that the relatives of Jesus lived near Nazareth and were preaching the Gospel and using the genealogies of Christ as a way of explaining how Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament. They lived in a village near Nazareth and were called by a special title—“The Master’s People.”

Bauckham said, “The meaning is probably that members of the family of Jesus, traveling around the land of Israel and preaching the Gospel to their fellow Jews, used a family genealogy, like that in Luke 3, as a way of explaining the Christian claim that Jesus was the messianic Son of David.”

Bauckham believes that while Peter and Paul took the Gospel westward into Asia Minor and Europe, James the Lord’s brother and his teams took the Gospel eastward toward Asia and India. There are medieval sources that suggest members of Jesus’ family traveled as missionaries through Mesopotamia. 

And then we have one final witness to history. 

During the persecution of Christians in 250–251 under the emperor Decius, a certain Conon, a gardener on the imperial estate, was martyred in Pamphylia in Asia Minor. According to the acts of his martyrdom, when questioned in court as to his place of origin and his ancestry, he replied: ‘I am of the city of Nazareth in Galilee, I am of the family of Christ, whose worship I have inherited from my ancestors.’

Mary was one of the greatest, godliest, and wisest women who ever lived. And she is our shining example of the primary point I want to bring “home” to you– Expect Pain and Problems in Your Family; But Rely on Resurrection Power to Prevail in the End.

Embedded into this story are two powerful concepts around which we can organize our thoughts in times of perplexity—rehearsal and reversal.

Rehearsal

First, we have to rehearse all the Scriptures God gives us and keep them constantly in mind. The Lord spoke to her through her older relative Elizabeth (Luke 1:29-56); the shepherds, whose words “Mary treasured up…and pondered…in her heart” (Luke 2:19). She never forgot what Simeon and Anna told her in the temple when the baby Jesus was dedicated to the Lord (Luke 2:22-38), nor what Jesus told her at age twelve: “Why were you searching for me? Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house” (Luke 2:49).

Luke adds, “But they did not understand what he was saying to them…. But his mother treasured all these things in her heart” (Luke 2:50-51).

The Christian experience involves a wonderful lifetime of Bible exploration, and God has words for us that will nourish us each day and nurture us through every stress and strain. We can get through every difficulty by rehearsing all God says to us.

Reversal

And then there was the great reversal—the Resurrection of Jesus from the tomb. The Lord not only reversed death itself in a flash of Easter glory; He reversed the direction of those grieving and the duration of their lives; the circumstances around their morale and then mission; and even the course of human history.

Jesus wields resurrection power over the burdens we bear and the prayers we offer. The apostle Paul described resurrection power like this:

I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened [to] know… his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms… (Ephesians 1:18-20).

The same power that resurrected Jesus causes “everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them” (Romans 8:28 NLT).

He can do that; He has promised He will do that. He can turn things round, reverse the tide of the biography of life, and safeguard our hearts and minds with His peace (Philippians 4:7). One day while contemplating this, I wrote a little couplet:

Praise God who works all things for good for those who love His Name.

His Providential Hand shall turn all burdens into gain.

The Risen Christ has done this over and over for us. Your situation is unique, of course. And yet, it isn’t. The Lord can handle it. This remarkable Jesus of Nazareth, Mary’s boy, said:

In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.

(John 16:33)

The post At Home with Jesus appeared first on RobertJMorgan.com.

At Home with Jesus – In Nazareth (Part 1)

At Home with Joseph and Mary – Part 1

People often invited Jesus into their homes, and occasionally He invited Himself. The outcome of His visit was unpredictable, and sometimes things ended with a miracle. Other times they ended with a mess. But when Jesus came in, the light came on. And the same is true for us and our lives.

Growing up, my home looked very different from many people’s homes, but I had no idea. I experienced a sheltered, busy, churchgoing, nuclear family in the 1950s and ‘60s, in a small, mountain town… prepared in some ways, but full of naivety in others.

Later as a pastor, I learned to guide people through situations involving infidelity, sexual escapades, murder, suicide, abandonment, pornography, runaway teens, domestic violence, substance abuse, intense poverty, homelessness, and more broken hearts than I had time to handle. Plus, like everyone, I began facing challenges under my own roof.

Here’s what I’ve learned over the decades. The Lord Jesus knows His way around the inside of a home and of a heart. His home was filled with people, problems, and pressures. His large family didn’t always get along, and as likely as not He was the source of the conflict.

The “Holy Family” had arguments and hurt feelings like we do, and they faced hard times. Jesus was a real child in a real home. He also encountered life as a single adult. He knew what it feels like it to be alone, unmarried, and even homeless. He once said, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head” (Matthew 8:20).

Imagine a Savior who left the ivory palaces of Heaven to visit the dusty, troubled lives of first-century Israelites. During His thirty-three years on earth, I imagine He entered the homes of hundreds of people, some as a child running errands, some as a teenager visiting buddies, others as a carpenter making repairs. And later as a prophet making house calls. How many doorways He darkened!

We specifically know of fifteen homes Jesus visited, and some of them have left us fascinating archaeological or historical clues as to their shape, size, and conditions.

The Lord’s personal visits to these houses are recorded for us in the Gospels, and in each place He hammed home a truth. 

After all, Jesus still makes house calls, and He brings all His human experience—as well as all His divine resources—to bear in every situation committed to Him. You may face pain and problems in your family or circumstances; but you can rely on Christ to march into every room of your life with you.

Jesus of Nazareth knows how to overhaul homes, oversee lives, overwhelm enemies, and overrule circumstances. It usually takes time; we may have to wait and watch, pray and trust. But when Jesus comes in, the light comes on. 

When He is Lord, He is Victor. And where He is Victor, He pivots things for our good through prayer and the provision of the Spirit of Christ Jesus (Philippians 1:19).

The overall lesson is simple: Jesus of Nazareth wants to live with you under your roof now, and He wants to make your heart His Home. When He comes in, the light comes on. 

“Look!” He said, “I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in, and we will share a meal together as friends” (Revelation 3:20 NLT).

Let’s start with the home in which Jesus grew up—the house of Joseph and Mary in ancient Nazareth.

As incredible as it sounds, the foundation and the floor plan of the home of Joseph and Mary in old Nazareth still seems to be intact. We have good evidence that the original ruins of Joseph’s home have been discovered beneath the floor of the Sisters of Nazareth Convent across the street from the Church of the Annunciation in the heart of the modern Arab city of Nazareth, the hometown of Jesus. 

Nazareth was undoubtedly large enough to have a synagogue, estimated by some to have about 800 people in it. As a youth, Jesus would have attended school in the synagogue, learning to read and write, studying the history of Israel, and absorbing the contents of the Scriptures that His parents also shared with Him at home.

Most people were mixed farmers, raising both livestock and crops, mainly olives, grapes, and grain. Within Nazareth, many of the houses were built into the sides of the hill, and the innermost recesses were often used to store perishables or to house livestock in bad weather. This is probably what Jesus had in mind when He said, “…when you pray, go into your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father who is in secret…” (Matthew 6:6 NASB).

We know a great deal about the homes in Nazareth because of the excavations of a British archaeologist named Dr. Ken Dark, although the story of his amazing work actually began long before his birth.

On Christmas Eve of 1881, a group of French Roman Catholic nuns purchased a large building in Nazareth for their headquarters, their convent. This building was in the heart of Nazareth, directly across the street from the massive Church of the Annunciation. In time, the women began exploring the basement and found odd caves and caverns and ruins. 

In 2006, Ken Dark and his team gained permission to conduct more methodical explorations, which went on for years. He discovered the ruins of a first-century home that had been “constructed by first creating a level terrace and then cutting back the rocky hillside… to form free-standing rock-cut walls. These were high enough to support a roof above adult height and solid enough to support an upper story.”

At some point in the 300s, just after Christianity was legalized in the Roman Empire, a church was built over this specific house, and it was called the Church of the Nutrition. The word nutrition is related to the idea of nurturing or raising children. We believe family members of the descendants of Joseph and Mary lived in and near Nazareth for years afterward. Jesus was well known, and his hometown would have remembered the carpenter’s house. It became a place for worship for early Christians.

In or about the year 380, a European woman named Egeria traveled to the Holy Land as a pilgrim to see the sites of the Bible. She left a record of her travels, and she said that in Nazareth she had worshipped in the Church of the Nutrition which was where Mary and Joseph had raised their family.

A hundred years later, another Holy Land pilgrim, an Irish Christian named Adomnán, worshiped in the Church of the Nutrition on the site of the house where Jesus had been raised. He spoke of two large churches side by side—the Church of the Annunciation and the Church of the Nutrition, the latter built over the site of the house where Jesus was brought up by Joseph and Mary.

So we have the archaeological ruins of a house beneath the current site of the convent of the Sisters of Nazareth across the street from the Church of the Annunciation. The remains of the ancient Church of the Nutrition are layered over the remains of the house. Ken Dark’s research details significant remains of a first century home visible beneath that convent, which from very early centuries was said to be the home of Joseph and Mary.

In his definitive book about his excavations, Archaeology of Jesus’ Nazareth, published in 2023, Ken Dark wrote:

It is possible that the summer heat was less of a problem for the occupants of [this house beneath the] sisters of Nazareth site, because of its thick rock walls. These would have protected them very effectively against the cold and rain of winter, and required little maintenance.

[The family of Jesus and their neighbors would have enjoyed] a healthy and varied diet. They certainly had grain, grapes, and olives, olive oil and wine, but also probably other fruits and vegetables. Milk production, in addition to milk to drink and for cooking, probably provided them with cheese and yogurt. They also ate beef, and probably lamb and goat. Wheat and barley were ground for bread, and possibly other baked foods.

 This all suggests that a fairly comfortable home life was possible.

The excavations indicate this house had a nice courtyard and would have been large enough for nine or ten people to eat and live and sleep comfortably.

It’s very possible, then, that beneath a convent in central Nazareth are the remains of the precise house in which Jesus grew up. I’ve described all this, not only to present plausible archaeological evidence for the Nazarene childhood of Christ, but so we can better use our imaginations to visualize our visit and get a sense of the homelife of the family of Joseph and Mary.

Jesus of Nazareth was a real person, a friendly, hardworking man who understood all the stresses and strains of family life and who knew how to enter both homes and hearts. Whatever our situation, He is ready to make a house call on our behalf.

The post At Home with Jesus – In Nazareth (Part 1) appeared first on RobertJMorgan.com.

At Home with Jesus

At Home with Joseph and Mary – Part 1

People often invited Jesus into their homes, and occasionally He invited Himself. The outcome of His visit was unpredictable, and sometimes things ended with a miracle. Other times they ended with a mess. But when Jesus came in, the light came on. And the same is true for us and our lives.

Growing up, my home looked very different from many people’s homes, but I had no idea. I experienced a sheltered, busy, churchgoing, nuclear family in the 1950s and ‘60s, in a small, mountain town… prepared in some ways, but full of naivety in others.

Later as a pastor, I learned to guide people through situations involving infidelity, sexual escapades, murder, suicide, abandonment, pornography, runaway teens, domestic violence, substance abuse, intense poverty, homelessness, and more broken hearts than I had time to handle. Plus, like everyone, I began facing challenges under my own roof.

Here’s what I’ve learned over the decades. The Lord Jesus knows His way around the inside of a home and of a heart. His home was filled with people, problems, and pressures. His large family didn’t always get along, and as likely as not He was the source of the conflict.

The “Holy Family” had arguments and hurt feelings like we do, and they faced hard times. Jesus was a real child in a real home. He also encountered life as a single adult. He knew what it feels like it to be alone, unmarried, and even homeless. He once said, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head” (Matthew 8:20).

Imagine a Savior who left the ivory palaces of Heaven to visit the dusty, troubled lives of first-century Israelites. During His thirty-three years on earth, I imagine He entered the homes of hundreds of people, some as a child running errands, some as a teenager visiting buddies, others as a carpenter making repairs. And later as a prophet making house calls. How many doorways He darkened!

We specifically know of fifteen homes Jesus visited, and some of them have left us fascinating archaeological or historical clues as to their shape, size, and conditions.

The Lord’s personal visits to these houses are recorded for us in the Gospels, and in each place He hammed home a truth. 

After all, Jesus still makes house calls, and He brings all His human experience—as well as all His divine resources—to bear in every situation committed to Him. You may face pain and problems in your family or circumstances; but you can rely on Christ to march into every room of your life with you.

Jesus of Nazareth knows how to overhaul homes, oversee lives, overwhelm enemies, and overrule circumstances. It usually takes time; we may have to wait and watch, pray and trust. But when Jesus comes in, the light comes on. 

When He is Lord, He is Victor. And where He is Victor, He pivots things for our good through prayer and the provision of the Spirit of Christ Jesus (Philippians 1:19).

The overall lesson is simple: Jesus of Nazareth wants to live with you under your roof now, and He wants to make your heart His Home. When He comes in, the light comes on. 

“Look!” He said, “I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in, and we will share a meal together as friends” (Revelation 3:20 NLT).

Let’s start with the home in which Jesus grew up—the house of Joseph and Mary in ancient Nazareth.

As incredible as it sounds, the foundation and the floor plan of the home of Joseph and Mary in old Nazareth still seems to be intact. We have good evidence that the original ruins of Joseph’s home have been discovered beneath the floor of the Sisters of Nazareth Convent across the street from the Church of the Annunciation in the heart of the modern Arab city of Nazareth, the hometown of Jesus. 

Nazareth was undoubtedly large enough to have a synagogue, estimated by some to have about 800 people in it. As a youth, Jesus would have attended school in the synagogue, learning to read and write, studying the history of Israel, and absorbing the contents of the Scriptures that His parents also shared with Him at home.

Most people were mixed farmers, raising both livestock and crops, mainly olives, grapes, and grain. Within Nazareth, many of the houses were built into the sides of the hill, and the innermost recesses were often used to store perishables or to house livestock in bad weather. This is probably what Jesus had in mind when He said, “…when you pray, go into your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father who is in secret…” (Matthew 6:6 NASB).

We know a great deal about the homes in Nazareth because of the excavations of a British archaeologist named Dr. Ken Dark, although the story of his amazing work actually began long before his birth.

On Christmas Eve of 1881, a group of French Roman Catholic nuns purchased a large building in Nazareth for their headquarters, their convent. This building was in the heart of Nazareth, directly across the street from the massive Church of the Annunciation. In time, the women began exploring the basement and found odd caves and caverns and ruins. 

In 2006, Ken Dark and his team gained permission to conduct more methodical explorations, which went on for years. He discovered the ruins of a first-century home that had been “constructed by first creating a level terrace and then cutting back the rocky hillside… to form free-standing rock-cut walls. These were high enough to support a roof above adult height and solid enough to support an upper story.”

At some point in the 300s, just after Christianity was legalized in the Roman Empire, a church was built over this specific house, and it was called the Church of the Nutrition. The word nutrition is related to the idea of nurturing or raising children. We believe family members of the descendants of Joseph and Mary lived in and near Nazareth for years afterward. Jesus was well known, and his hometown would have remembered the carpenter’s house. It became a place for worship for early Christians.

In or about the year 380, a European woman named Egeria traveled to the Holy Land as a pilgrim to see the sites of the Bible. She left a record of her travels, and she said that in Nazareth she had worshipped in the Church of the Nutrition which was where Mary and Joseph had raised their family.

A hundred years later, another Holy Land pilgrim, an Irish Christian named Adomnán, worshiped in the Church of the Nutrition on the site of the house where Jesus had been raised. He spoke of two large churches side by side—the Church of the Annunciation and the Church of the Nutrition, the latter built over the site of the house where Jesus was brought up by Joseph and Mary.

So we have the archaeological ruins of a house beneath the current site of the convent of the Sisters of Nazareth across the street from the Church of the Annunciation. The remains of the ancient Church of the Nutrition are layered over the remains of the house. Ken Dark’s research details significant remains of a first century home visible beneath that convent, which from very early centuries was said to be the home of Joseph and Mary.

In his definitive book about his excavations, Archaeology of Jesus’ Nazareth, published in 2023, Ken Dark wrote:

It is possible that the summer heat was less of a problem for the occupants of [this house beneath the] sisters of Nazareth site, because of its thick rock walls. These would have protected them very effectively against the cold and rain of winter, and required little maintenance.

[The family of Jesus and their neighbors would have enjoyed] a healthy and varied diet. They certainly had grain, grapes, and olives, olive oil and wine, but also probably other fruits and vegetables. Milk production, in addition to milk to drink and for cooking, probably provided them with cheese and yogurt. They also ate beef, and probably lamb and goat. Wheat and barley were ground for bread, and possibly other baked foods.

 This all suggests that a fairly comfortable home life was possible.

The excavations indicate this house had a nice courtyard and would have been large enough for nine or ten people to eat and live and sleep comfortably.

It’s very possible, then, that beneath a convent in central Nazareth are the remains of the precise house in which Jesus grew up. I’ve described all this, not only to present plausible archaeological evidence for the Nazarene childhood of Christ, but so we can better use our imaginations to visualize our visit and get a sense of the homelife of the family of Joseph and Mary.

Jesus of Nazareth was a real person, a friendly, hardworking man who understood all the stresses and strains of family life and who knew how to enter both homes and hearts. Whatever our situation, He is ready to make a house call on our behalf.

The post At Home with Jesus appeared first on RobertJMorgan.com.

The Songs Jesus Sang – Part 7

(About Eternity)

Psalm 118

Preface: My hometown of Elizabethton was a thriving little community when I was growing up and everyone came out for the parades that marched down Elk Avenue, which is the main street of our town. The Christmas parade was the most exciting because Santa Claus was on the last float and he threw out candy to the crowds that lined the streets. Later when I was in junior high and playing the trombone in the marching band, I became a part of the parade, and nothing made me happier than dressing up in my band uniform and marching in the Christmas parade.

The high school I attended didn’t have a band and I let the trombone slide, so my parade days have been over for decades. But there is a parade I do want to join, and that is the festive celebration of those entering the gates of New Jerusalem. Isaac Watts put it this way:

We’re marching to Zion,

Beautiful, beautiful Zion,

We’re marching upward to Zion,

The beautiful city of God.

We have a foreshadowing of this festive procession in Psalm 118, the final installment in what is known as the Egyptian Hallel—Psalm 113 through 118. Let’s read Psalm 118. 

Psalm 118

1 Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
    his love endures forever.

2 Let Israel say:
    “His love endures forever.”
3 Let the house of Aaron say:
    “His love endures forever.”
4 Let those who fear the Lord say:
    “His love endures forever.”

5 When hard pressed, I cried to the Lord;
    he brought me into a spacious place.
6 The Lord is with me; I will not be afraid.
    What can mere mortals do to me?
7 The Lord is with me; he is my helper.
    I look in triumph on my enemies.

8 It is better to take refuge in the Lord
    than to trust in humans.
9 It is better to take refuge in the Lord
    than to trust in princes.
10 All the nations surrounded me,
    but in the name of the Lord I cut them down.
11 They surrounded me on every side,
    but in the name of the Lord I cut them down.
12 They swarmed around me like bees,
    but they were consumed as quickly as burning thorns;
    in the name of the Lord I cut them down.
13 I was pushed back and about to fall,
    but the Lord helped me.
14 The Lord is my strength and my defense;
    he has become my salvation.

15 Shouts of joy and victory
    resound in the tents of the righteous:
“The Lord’s right hand has done mighty things!
16     The Lord’s right hand is lifted high;
    the Lord’s right hand has done mighty things!”
17 I will not die but live,
    and will proclaim what the Lord has done.
18 The Lord has chastened me severely,
    but he has not given me over to death.

19 Open for me the gates of the righteous;
    I will enter and give thanks to the Lord.
20 This is the gate of the Lord
    through which the righteous may enter.
21 I will give you thanks, for you answered me;
    you have become my salvation.

22 The stone the builders rejected
    has become the cornerstone;
23 the Lord has done this,
    and it is marvelous in our eyes.
24 The Lord has done it this very day;
    let us rejoice today and be glad.

25 Lord, save us!
    Lord, grant us success!

26 Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
    From the house of the Lord we bless you.
27 The Lord is God,
    and he has made his light shine on us.
With boughs in hand, join in the festal procession
    up to the horns of the altar.

28 You are my God, and I will praise you;
    you are my God, and I will exalt you.

29 Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
    his love endures forever.

Introduction

Psalm 118 was Martin Luther’s favorite Psalm. He said, “This is my own beloved psalm. Although the entire psalter and all of holy Scripture is dear to me as my only comfort and source of life, I fell in love especially with this psalm. Therefore I call it my own. When emperors and kings, the wise and learned, and even saints could not aid me, this psalm proved a friend and helped me out of many great troubles. As a result, it is dearer to me than all the wealth, honor, and power of the pope, the Turk, and the emperor. I am most unwilling to trade this psalm for all of it.”

This is also a Psalm that has strengthened many people during times of persecution. The Scottish Covenanter, Donald Cargill, for example, sang this Psalm as he was set afire and burned at the stake. 

This also happens to be the middle chapter of the Bible. There are 594 chapters before Psalm 118, and 594 chapters after it. The more I studied this psalm, the more I realized it should also be in the center of my thoughts. I’ve not given it enough attention in my own life. It is the last of the Egyptian Hallel songs that we’ve been studying. This was the final hymn Jesus sang, to the very best of our knowledge. It was the ending of the songs that were traditionally sung at the Passover meal.

It divides into three parts.

1. Our Call to Thanksgiving (Verses 1 – 4)

Verses 1 through 4 serve as the preamble of this Psalm and are a call to thanksgiving for us. This is also one of the few chapters that begin and end with the same words. 

Verse 1 says: “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever.” And the end of the psalm—verse 29—says, “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever.”  So there’s no doubt about the theme of this Psalm. God’s love is indestructible, so we should be unendingly thankful.

This writer here is exuberant. He has a new vision of God’s love for him. Something has happened to remind him of how much the God of the universe loves him with an enduring, unending, indestructible love. You and I need a fresh awareness of the same thing. What would happen if we really understood this to the depth of our being?

The word “love” here is the Hebrew word hesed, which we saw in Psalm 117. This word occurs almost 250 times in the Old Testament, and over half the occurrences are in the book of Psalms.

This word hesed is used, for example, in Psalm 23:6, which tells us that goodness and mercy will follow us all the days of our lives. The word mercy is actually the Hebrew word hesed, which means God’s loyal, unconditional, active, covenant love will be available to us every single day, regardless of what the day brings. 

In the book of Ruth, Naomi begs her widowed daughter-in-law Ruth to return to Moab, but Ruth says, “No. Where you go, I will go. Where you live, I will live. Your God shall be my God. Where you die and are buried, there will I die and be buried. I will never leave you.” In Ruth 3:10, Ruth’s loyalty to her mother-in-law is described as hesed. It’s a divine-type of loyalty and love.

Jeremiah used this word in Lamentations 3:22, when he said, “Because of the Lord’s [hesed love for us] we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.”

In Psalm 136, the phrase “His [hesed] love endures forever” occurs 26 times in 26 verses! It occupies the last half of every verse in that chapter, which is intended for an antiphonal reading or singing.

This is the attitude John the Apostle had in mind when he said, “Perfect love casts out fear.” The more we grasp God’s hesed love, the less we’ll fear man’s hateful schemes or the devil’s hostile tricks.

It’s impossible to overestimate the significance of God’s hesed love toward us. In fact, it’s impossible even to estimate it, because it is infinite—and our minds are not.  All we can truly do is underestimate it, but as we grow in Christ we should underestimate it less and less, and appreciate it more and more.

The Message version puts it like this: “Thank God because He’s good, because His love never quits. Tell the world, Israel, ‘His love never quits.’ And you, clan of Aaron, tell the world, ‘His love never quits.’ And you who fear God, join in, ‘His love never quits.’”

So this man is exuberant because he has a renewed awareness of how much God loves him. Who is he and what has happened to him? What event led to his rediscovery of God’s love for him? Verses 5 through 14 tells us about his deliverance from distress.

2. Our Deliverance from Distress (Verses 5 – 18)

Verse 5 says: When hard pressed, I cried to the Lord; he brought me into a spacious place. The Hebrew term means a very narrow or confining space. Have you ever seen a movie in which the walls of a room moved inward to squeeze a victim. Or have you read about some of the POW cages, which were too small for the prisoner to stand or to lie down? Or have you read about a battle in which the ground gets smaller and smaller as the enemy advances. The writer here is saying, “I was getting pressed to the wall, and suddenly the Lord reached down, picked me up, and set me down in a spacious place.”

Verse 6 and 7 give us the man’s reaction to God’s deliverance. This man realized something: The Lord is with me; I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me? The Lord is with me; he is my helper. I look in triumph on my enemies.

I especially like the phrase about the Lord being our helper. There is a certain category of verses in the Bible I call my “help” verses. Here in verse 7, the writer says, “The Lord is with me; He is my helper.” And in verse 13 he’s going to say, “I was pushed back and about to fall, but the Lord helped me.”

Verses 8 and 9 say: It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in humans. It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes.

This man was under incredible pressure, but he cried out to the Lord and the Lord caught him up, put him in a spacious place, reassured him of His presence, alleviated his fear, and reminded him that He—the Lord—was there to help him. So now, look at this man’s confidence. Verses 10 through 12 are brimming with courage:

All the nations surrounded me, but in the name of the  Lord  I cut them down. They surrounded me on every side, but in the name of the  Lord  I cut them down. They swarmed around me like bees, but they were consumed as quickly as burning thorns; in the name of the  Lord  I cut them down.

Years and years ago, I was mowing the back pasture when I ran into a nest of hornets. It was a hot day, and I was only wearing shorts and shoes. I jumped off the mower and ran for my life, and the hornets were right behind me, attacking me with all the anger they could carry in their little stingers. My whole body was pockmarked with stings. This is the comparison this man makes. His enemies were swarming around him like hornets. Verses 13 and 14 say: I was pushed back and about to fall, but the Lord helped me. The Lord is my strength and my defense; he has become my salvation.

Now, let me pause and ask again. Who is this man? It could have been young David when he was being chased by the Israeli army under the command of King Saul. It could have been King Jehoshaphat when he was invaded by the combined armies of his enemies. It could have been Nehemiah when he was trying to build the walls of Jerusalem in a virtual war zone. It could be you or me.

But is there someone else this could be? That is the greatest question of this Psalm. Whoever it is, there are other people who rejoice in His amazing deliverance. Here was a man who was pressed to the wall. He was running out of room, he was being stung by a swarm of bees, as it were. And God stepped in and pulled him out of his peril. And now everyone who is righteous is celebrating. Look at verse 15:  Shouts of joy and victory resound in the tents of the righteous: “The Lord’s right hand has done mighty things!”

That is the middle verse of the middle chapter of the Bible. Have you ever been in a restaurant with television screens on different ball games, and suddenly in one part of the restaurant a loud chorus of cheers goes up? Well, as far as you can see in this spacious place, there are tents occupied by good and righteous people, and something has happened to make them all cheer and shout and cry and sing at once, and they cry out, “Yahweh’s right hand has done something with unexpected power and momentous consequence.”

This man who has been delivered goes on to say in verses 17: The Lord’s right hand is lifted high; the Lord’s right hand has done mighty things!” I will not die but live, and will proclaim what the Lord has done. The Lord has chastened me severely, but he has not given me over to death.”

I was whipped. The Lord let me be scourged, but I will not die but live. Who is this person? Well, in one sense, of course, it is you and me, those of us who love and follow the Lord and who find that He delivers us from one danger after another because of His undying love. But that’s not the full answer. Let’s look at the last part of this psalm—our parade of victory.

3. Our Parade of Victory (Verses 19 – 29)

Sometimes in our little town we had victory parades. Well, this man, who ran out of room and was scourged but who is alive and victorious invites us to join him for a victory parade. Look at verses 19 and 20: 

Open for me the gates of the righteous; I will enter and give thanks to the  Lord . This is the gate of the  Lord through which the righteous may enter.

Now we’re marching to Zion. We’re going up to the temple. There are a series of gates, and they open for us as we make our way into the presence of God.

In verse 21, the man again expresses His thanksgiving:  I will give you thanks, for you answered me; you have become my salvation. He is so thankful. He was hard pressed. He was surrounded on every side by enemies. He was tortured by stinging and scourging. But he is alive and He is going to live and lead us all in a parade to Zion. Who is He?

Verse 22: He is the stone the builders rejected [who] has become the cornerstone.

In Matthew 21:42, Jesus asked His critics, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: ‘The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; the Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes’?”

When Peter and John were defending themselves for healing a lame man before the Jewish ruling council in the book of Acts, Peter with boldness and intrepidity, said, “It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, who you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. Jesus is ‘the stone you builders rejected, which has become the cornerstone.’ Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:10-12).

The apostle Peter wasn’t done. In this first letter, he said, “To you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe, ‘The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone’” (1 Peter 2:7).

The apostle Paul said, “Christ Jesus Himself [is] the chief cornerstone” (Ephesians 2:20).

Continuing with Psalm 118, we now come to one of our favorite verses: “This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.” In its immediate context, this day is the day God the Father provided for our salvation through Jesus Christ,” although it’s also true for us every single day as people who are living in the glory of that salvation. I very often quote this verse aloud upon awakening in the morning: “This is the day the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it!”

This is our parade music. Look at verse 25: “Lord, save us!” The Hebrew word is “Hosanna!” Lord, grant us success. Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!”  

The crowds sang this on Palm Sunday, but the leaders crucified Jesus anyway. But now we have won the victory through Jesus Christ, and as we make our way down the parade route to Heaven, we can sing with new reality: Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!

Verses 26 and 27 say: Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. From the house of the Lord we bless you. The Lord is God, and he has made his light shine on us.

Now all of us who know the Lord and share in His victory are invited to join the parade. Verse 27 goes on to way: With boughs in hand, join in the festal procession up to the horns of the altar—that is right up into the presence of God in Heaven. And as we do so, we will sing verses 28 and 29:

You are my God, and I will praise you;
you are my God, and I will exalt you.

Give thanks to the  Lord , for he is good;
his love endures forever.

By the end of the Psalm we are in the Lord’s house. Through Jesus Christ, we are marching toward Heaven and into our glorious experience of eternal life.

Now, remember, this was the final song Jesus sang in the Upper Room before heading out to Gethsemane and Golgotha. 

The Scottish preacher, Andrew Bonar, wrote: “When Himself sung His Psalm, would not His eye look onward, not to Resurrection only, but to Ascension, too, when He entered the gates of righteousness above—but not least to His Second Coming and His passing with His ransomed into New Jerusalem, when they together enter in through the gates of the city…. It seems to be the Redeemer Himself, now surrounded by this multitude of ransomed ones, in whom He sees the travail of His soul and is satisfied, who closes this Psalm by a thanksgiving to His Father for these results and by an invitation to all the universe to join in and praise the God of love. He, in the days of His First Coming, sang it as His hymn while rising from the table to go to the garden of Gethsemane; but at His Second Coming, He will sing it with the tone of more than conqueror, having realized the whole. We may entitle a Psalm that contains such stirring incidents, past and prospective, ‘The Redeemers Conflict, Triumph, and Glorification, shared in by His Redeemed.’”

Conclusion

In closing, I have undertaken to do something I don’t know if I should have done. This is such a sacred passage. But if you will give me a bit of patience, I have taken Psalm 118 and tried, with my limited intellect and imagination, to conceive of how Jesus might have interpreted this Psalm as He sang it on that never-to-be forgotten night. To the best of our knowledge, this was the final hymn of His natural life—his deathbed song, as it were. Let’s try to enter into the wonder and passion and glory of it.

My Father, how I thank You for Your goodness to Me. Your love for Me is indestructible. I want all the people of Israel to know Your love is indestructible. I want all the priests of Israel to know Your love for them is indestructible. Oh, may everyone who fears You proclaim Your indestructible love.

Father, I am about to be hard pressed against the jagged wood of the rugged cross. With this song, I am crying out to You in the firm confidence You will raise me up to a spacious place.

Because You are with Me, I will not be afraid of what these mere mortals will do to Me.

You are with Me, and You are My Helper. I will triumph over my enemies. It’s better to lean on You than to lean on My disciples. It’s better to lean on You than to rely on the Jewish leaders or Roman rulers. 

The whole world is against Me, but I will overrule it. They are going to surround Me as I hang on the cross, but I am going to overrule them. They are going to attack Me like a swarm of angry hornets, but I will overcome. They will push me to the limits of endurance, but You will help me.

Father, You are My strength, and My song, and My salvation. Yes, there will be cries of anguish; but they will soon be replaced by shouts of joy and victory in the homes of My followers, who will proclaim in amazement, “The Lord’s right hand has done mighty things!”

Yes, Your right hand is lifted high and will do mighty things. I will not be overcome by death. I will overcome death and will live and will proclaim Your glory. I may be scourged and whipped, but I will emerge from pain and death, and I will be victorious and ready to go forward. 

Go ahead and open the gates of Heaven, because I’m on My way, and I will enter those gates with thanksgiving to You, Father, for those gates are swinging open to every person who finds their righteousness in Me.

I cannot stop thanking You for the way You will hear Me and help Me, and for Your promise to lift Me from the dead. I am the stone the builders rejected, but I will become the cornerstone for My people. You have done this, and it’s marvelous in My eyes.

Hey, everyone! This is the day the Lord has made. Let’s rejoice and be glad in it. Hosanna! Hosanna in the highest! Praise God for His success. 

Listen, Father, as Your children amass along the parade route, all the way from here to the Heavenly Temple, they will praise Me, singing: “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the  Lord . From the house of the  Lord  we bless you. The  Lord  is God, and He has made His light shine on us.”

I can see them now, Father, with confetti and ticker tape and banners, cheering with joy as they march toward Zion, and as they sing: “You are my God, and I will praise you; You are my God, and I will exalt you.”

My Father, how I thank You for Your goodness to Me. Your love for Me is utterly indestructible.

Maybe that was a bit of what our Lord considered as He sang Psalm 118 that mystic night. This Psalm was for Him and it is also for us. So…

Come, we that love the Lord

And let our joys be known;

Join in a song with sweet accord,

And thus surround the throne.

We’re marching to Zion,

Beautiful, beautiful Zion;

We’re marching upward to Zion,

The beautiful city of God.

The post The Songs Jesus Sang – Part 7 appeared first on RobertJMorgan.com.

The Proverbial Decision Maker

Now today I want to talk about the Proverbial Decision Maker. Let’s turn to the Old Testament book of Proverbs and see what we can learn about making better daily decisions. Maturity means knowing how to choose wisely. Our key text is Proverbs 16:9:

The mind of man plans his way, but the Lord directs His steps.

Years ago I was reading the newspaper, and there was an article about an entrepreneur in Great Britain named Tony Proverbs. To my knowledge, that’s the first time in my life I’ve heard of anyone with that last name. I immediately wondered to myself if there were any Proverbs living in Nashville, so I checked the phone book. Do you remember that strange book? It had everyone’s name and phone number in it? Well, I didn’t find anyone with that last name. Then I wondered how that surname developed. I concluded, rightly or wrongly, that there must have been someone in Medieval times, when surnames were developing, who was always quoting from and living by the verses in book of Proverbs, and soon he became known Mr. Proverbs. 

Well, if only we were all known by that name. What a difference it would make in our lives and families and churches and communities if we all became living, walking, breathing embodiments of the book Proverbs! There is a verse in the book of Proverbs to regulate virtually every attitude and action that comprises our daily lives, and to be so saturated with Proverbs that it molds our daily actions and reactions—well, that would make us a group of people who were truly wise, prudent, disciplined, and useful for the Kingdom.

The prologue of the book of Proverbs in Proverbs 1:1-7 tells us that its purpose in the Bible—the reason God placed it here in the middle of His Word—is to enable us to live a prudent and disciplined lives, knowing that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. 

God designed the book of Proverbs ingeniously. He could have given us 31 topical chapters—one chapter on the tongue, with all the verse groups under that heading. We would read verse after verse about the way we should use our tongues in speaking. And the next chapter might be on greed and money. The next might be on sex. And so forth. But after the fourth or fifth verse on a topic, all the verses would tend to sound the same and we would have trouble focusing on the truth of each one. But we have all these topics and more scattered throughout the book, and as we read through Proverbs daily we come across all those topics rotating, as it were, through the pages of the book. They are organized enough to give us a chapter for each day; but the verses are random enough to meet us where we are.

But sometimes we do want to categorize and systematize them—at least I do. And so I read through the entire book of Proverbs, isolating every verse that had to do with making better decisions.

Maturity means knowing how to choose wisely, and making wise decisions isn’t as easy as it seems. I recall hearing about a man who hired himself out to a farmer, and on the first day his job was chopping wood, which he did very well. The second day, he was sent out to the field to dig weeds, which he did very well. The third it was raining, so the farmer put the man in the barn to sort potatoes. His job was to work his way through the bushel boxes, tossing away the rotten potatoes; but at the end of the day he quit.

The farmer was amazed. “The first day you chopped wood and the second day you weeded in the fields,” said the farmer. “Those were very hard jobs under the hot sun, and you did well. But today all you had to do was sit there and sort potatoes. Why did you quit?”

The man said, “I couldn’t stand making all those decisions.” And that’s the way I sometimes feel. As we go through life, we don’t mind the hard work; it’s making the decisions that wears us out. Yet, it’s our decisions that make us or break us as human beings.

When God appeared to Moses at the burning bush, Moses had to make a decision.When the angel recruited Gideon to lead Israel, Gideon had to decide what to do.When Delilah tempted Samson, his entire fate was sealed by his decision.The prophet Elijah preached to the children of Israel, he told them to decide whom to follow. He said, “How long halt ye between two opinions?”When Jesus said, “Follow Me,” Peter and Andrew faced a decision.When the Roman Governor, Pontius Pilate, found himself standing face to face with Jesus of Nazareth, he had to make the most important decision of his life, and he had to make it quickly.When the apostle Paul found that his way into Asia was barred, he had to decide where to turn and what to do.

And every human being faces a bevy of decisions every day. Our ability to make good decisions is potentially our greatest asset in life. Every good book on leadership and management contains a chapter on the fine art of decision-making. The greatest management guru of the earlier generation was Peter Drucker, and his seminal book was entitled The Effective Executive. It only had seven chapters, and two of them were devoted to decision-making. It’s hard work, and sometimes it’s anguishing. Every one of us wishes we could turn back the clock and reverse some bad decision or another than we made.

When Admiral William Crowe was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he told Time Magazine, “I have known individuals who made a big decision and never gave it another thought. I don’t. When it’s a big issue, I don’t sleep soundly.”

Well, how can we learn to make decisions that let us sleep soundly? Proverbs 12:26 says, “The righteous should choose… carefully” (NKJV); and Proverbs 5:23 warns, “Death is the reward of an undisciplined life; your foolish decisions trap you in a dead end” (The Message).

As I read through the book of Proverbs searching out to see what it had to say on this subject, there seemed to be three great techniques the writers advocated.

Talk it Out

The first is to talk it out. Go to a friend. Find a counselor. Seek out an expert. Find someone who can look at the matter objectively, and seek counsel. Talk it out with someone. Listen to these verses:

Proverbs 11:14 (NIV): For lack of guidance a nation falls, but many advisors make victory sure.Proverbs 12:15 (NIV): The way of a fool seems right to him, but a wise man listens to advice.Proverbs 13:10 (NIV): Pride only breeds quarrels, but wisdom is found in those who take advice.Proverbs 15:22 (NIV): Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers they succeed.Proverbs 19:20 (NIV): Listen to advice and accept instruction, and in the end you will be wise.Proverbs 24:5-6 (NIV): A wise man has great power, and a man of knowledge increases strength; for waging war you need guidance, and for victory many advisors.

This is so important that we can say it helped win the American Revolution. In 1776, the Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4th, and within six months it appeared that the whole thing was a lost cause. The fledgling American troops had been defeated at New York, and Washington had lost 90 percent of his army. Despair descended on the colonies, and it seemed to be just a matter of time before the war ended in defeat. 

On one side was General George Washington, and on the other side was Lord Charles Cornwallis. At critical moments, both men convened their advisors in counsels of war, but the two men had vastly different styles of leadership. When Washington met with his advisors, he actually listened to them and often hammered their advice into a consensus that formed his decisions. When Cornwallis gathered his advisors, he held court. He seldom asked advice and didn’t seem to hear it when it was offered. He just announced his decisions.

As a result, Washington made a series of better decisions, and the British forces lost a war they were on the verge of winning. He was following Proverbs 20:18, which says: Proverbs 20:18 (NIV): Make plans by seeking advice; if you wage war, obtain advice.

In my four decades of being a local pastor, the advice and counsel and deliberations of the staff, deacons, finance committee, and many others were invaluable to me in helping me avoid unwise decisions as pastor. And in my personal life, I learned when I have a mind to do something but Katrina had hesitations about it, she was almost certainly right. The two of us make better decisions than I make by myself.

In making medical decisions, financial decisions, or legal decisions, I need good advice. In making personal decisions of all sorts, I need advice. So before making a decision, seek the advice of those you trust and who are knowledgeable in the areas requiring your attention. Go to them and talk it out. 

Think it Over

Second, think it over. Proverbs 16:9 says, “The mind of man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.” We can sometimes arrive at an accurate application of that verse by exchanging the “but” for an “and”—the mind of man plans his way, and the Lord directs his steps. In other words, the Lord guides us, not normally by bolts of lightning or messages in the sky, but by giving us brains to think through our options and determine His will in any given matter.

John Wesley said: “God generally guides me by presenting reasons to my mind for acting in a certain way.”

Dr. J. Oswald Sanders said: “God generally guides (us) by the exercise of (our) sanctified judgment.”

As a young man, I enjoyed the motivational essays of the late Earl Nightingale, whose motivational talks were on tapes you could buy. He had a rich deep voice. One of his essays is entitled, “The Great Problem Solving Tool,” and it was about the human brain. Nightingale claimed that most people only use about ten percent of their brain’s capacity, and in this lecture he put it this way:

[Their own brain] is the last place on earth the average person will turn to for help… You know why people don’t automatically turn their own vast mental resources on when faced with a problem? It’s because they never learned how to think. Most people will go to any length to avoid thinking when they’re faced with a problem. They will ask advice from the most illogical people, usually people who don’t know any more than they do: next-door neighbors, members of their families, and friends stuck in the same mental traps that they are. Very few of them use the muscles of their mind to solve their problems.

I think he’s right because I know from my own experience that I’m often likely to make decisions on impulse rather than thinking them through; but when I think over and ponder my steps, I’m much more likely to make a good decision. That’s why I’ve learned, whenever I’m faced with a big decision, to get away and think about it. Sometimes if it’s really a big decision, I’ll go away a few days; other times I can only manage a few hours or a few minutes; but if I can just go walking and think it through, I’m more confident of making the wiser choice.

This is the advice of the Proverbs:

Proverbs 14:8 (NIV): The wisdom of the prudent is to give thought to their ways, but the folly of fools is deception.Proverbs 14:15 (NIV): The simple man believes anything, but a prudent (person) gives thought to his steps.Proverbs 21:29 (NIV): A wicked man puts up a bold front, but an upright man gives thought to his ways.

On several occasions several years ago, I heard the great Methodist preacher, Charles Allen, and I always looked forward to his sermons. He was a master in the pulpit. I once heard him tell a story that is also found in one of his books. A man came to see him so confused that he had made himself sick. He said, “If someone doesn’t tell me what to do, I will go crazy.” Allen said he couldn’t give him any advice until he had listened to the problem, so he asked the man to lay before him the entire situation. Allen listened to the whole thing. Then the preacher said, in effect, “I need time to ponder such a problem, and since you’ve been thinking about it longer than I have, do you have any ideas of your own? What do you think you should do?”

The man started to talk it out and pretty soon he had outlined a marvelous solution to his own problem. Charles Allen said, “That seems to me a fine answer and the answer to your questions.” The man got up and fervently thanked Dr. Allen and told him he was the wisest and most sensible man he’d ever talked to, and he left the room a new creation. Dr. Allen said, “I didn’t do anything for the man, except to encourage him to use his own mind.”

God gave us brains, the most advanced piece of creation in the entire universe—and most of our problems and decisions can be arrived at through the sanctified application of really thinking through a situation and pondering it in prayer. And that leads to my third point…

Pray it Through

In 1979, when Katrina and I were pastoring our wonderful little church in the mountains, I began to sense and know that God wanted me to move into a more populated area to minister. I had visited up and down the roads, but the valley we lived in was so sparsely populated that it was impossible to reach large numbers of people; and as a young pastor I felt limited. I’m not sure that was a correct sentiment, but that’s how I felt at the time.

One day the chairman of the pulpit committee of a growing suburban church called me and asked if I would come and meet with his people and consider becoming their pastor. This was in the Midwest, in an area that I loved. I was ready to jump at the chance. This was what I’d been wanting for some time, and I thought it sounded like a tailor-made opportunity for me. But instead of giving him an immediate answer on the phone, I told him I’d like a few days to pray about it.

Katrina and I were leaving for vacation, and we were going to Myrtle Beach in South Carolina, and then on to Charlotte, North Carolina, for our annual denominational convention where I was giving the Sunday morning Sunday School message for the adults. There on the beach, I went for long walks every morning and every evening, just thinking and praying and telling the Lord how excited I was about moving to Chicago. But after praying for a week, I knew in my heart that God was saying, “No.” There was in inner impression that I should not move in that direction.

We went on to Charlotte, checked into our hotel, and I called my friend, who expressed his disappointment; and I felt terrible. The next morning, I taught Sunday School, and unbeknownst to me, there were some members of a church in the Nashville area in attendance. The next day, a man approached me and said he wanted to meet me. And five months later, Katrina and I showed up there to begin a long-term pastorate.

So many times it is in my prayer time that I sense God’s will for my life and I’m able to make decisions. And that’s not just true for me—that is the way it is for us as Christians. Solomon’s father, King David, wrote something in Psalm 37 that the steps of a good person are ordered by the Lord. And Solomon himself later wrote Proverbs 20:24 (NIV): A man’s steps are directed by the Lord. How then can anyone understand his own way?

The wonderful poet, John Oxenham, put this truth into a little verse he wrote:

Not for one single day

Can I discern my way,

But this I surely know,–

Who gives the day,

Will show the way,

So I securely go.

Proverbs 20:21 (NIV): Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.Proverbs 3:5-6 (NKJV): Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.

Several years ago, I spoke to the students of Brian College in Tennessee, and my subject touched on God’s ability to guide us in matters large and small. Afterward I was bombarded with questions. Another speaker some weeks before had suggested that God may establish certain parameters for our lives, but He normally does not involve Himself in specifics. He sets the tone, but we strike the notes. He appoints the destination but leaves the route to us. He has little to do with planning the details of our lives.

I respectfully disagree with the prior speaker, whoever he was. God’s guidance is specific, detailed, daily, and pre-ordained from the foundation of the earth. I believe that’s what the Psalmist was implying in Psalm 139:16: “Your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be” (NIV).

Jesus avowed that God was more concerned about the details of our lives than He is for the birds of the air and the lilies of the field (Matthew 6:26-28), and our Lord said in Matthew 10:29-20 (NIV): “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.” 

If He counts the hairs on our heads, He’s certainly interested in the moments in our days. We just have to acknowledge His Lordship in all our ways and He has promised to direct our paths. That begins to happen when we make the most important decision of all—the decision to follow Jesus Christ and let Him become the Lord of our lives. Have you done that?

If Thou but suffer God to guide thee,

And trust in Him in all thy ways,

He’ll give thee strength whate’er befall thee,

And bear thee through the evil days.

Who trusts in God all unafraid,

Builds on the rock that naught can move.
Whenever you have to make a big decision, or even a small one, Talk it Out, Think it Over, and Pray it Through. The mind of man plans his way, but the Lord directs His steps.

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The Songs Jesus Sang – Part 6

Praise the Lord, All You Nations!

A Study of Psalm 117

Review: Only a few days before my wife, Katrina, went to Heaven as I was helping her into bed, she started saying something. She was reciting a stanza of a hymn by Charles Wesley. She said, “My gracious Master and my God, assist me to proclaim, to spread through all the earth abroad the glory of Thy name. A few days later, we all circled around her and sang that great hymn, “O for a thousand tongues to sing my great Redeemer’s praise. The glories of my God and King, the triumph of His grace.” 

My gracious Master and my God,

Assist me to proclaim,

To spread through all the earth abroad

The glory of Thy name.

Jesus! The name that charms our fears,

That bids our sorrows cease.

‘Tis music in the sinner’s ears,

‘Tis life and health and peace.

A few days later we sang this at her funeral.

Well, on the night before He died by crucifixion, the Lord Jesus and His disciples sang a selection of hymns together. It was the closest He would come to having people sing around His deathbed, as it were. Matthew and Luke both tell us Jesus and His disciples sang in the Upper Room, and the songs that were sung on that occasion, around the Passover meal, were Psalm 113 through 118. These are called the Egyptian Hallel songs.

When I learned that, I wanted to see exactly what Jesus would have been singing on that never-to-be forgotten night. Those songs present for us the progressive elements of the Gospel. I’m surprised I’ve never seen this before.

Psalm 113 is about the almighty God humbling Himself to come and care for us, and there’s the strong hint of the incarnation there.

Psalm 114 is about redemption. 

Psalm 115 is about the life of faith.

Psalm 116 is about victory over death.

The almighty God of time and eternity humbled Himself and became a man to redeem us by grace through faith and to give us victory over death and everlasting life.

Now we come to Psalm 117, and the theme of this little song is the worldwide scope of the Gospel. This is a message, not just for Israel or the Jews, but for all the world. This is the shortest chapter in the Bible. Two very brief verses, only 29 words in the New International Version, and fewer than that in the original Hebrew. It is the Old Testament Great Commission.

Scripture: Psalm 17

Praise the Lord, all you nations; extol him, all you peoples. For great is his love toward us, and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever. Praise the Lord.

1. Invitation

This little song has several parts to it. First, an invitation to the nations. Notice that the song opens and closes with the words “Praise the Lord.” But the meaning is different. This phrase is used in a different way each time. At the opening, this is an invitation. We are inviting the nations to praise the Lord—praise the Lord, all you nations. We are inviting the Russians to praise the Lord. We are inviting the Chinese to praise the Lord. We are asking the people of Nigeria and Brazil and America to praise the Lord. We are calling on them to acknowledge Him, to honor Him. Praise the Lord, all you nations; extol Him, all you peoples.

2. Explanation

The second part of the song is an explanation. Why should the people of Russia and China and Nigeria and Brazil and America praise the Lord? Because He loves them and has made promises to them, which He will keep.

Praise the Lord, all you nations; extol him, all you peoples. For great is his love toward us [us human beings, us who populate the nations], and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever.

First, great is His love toward us. Love is an inadequate translation, and, in fact, it is very difficult to translate the Hebrew word hesed. It means covenant love.  Imagine a couple falling in love. They go out to eat. There is a candlelight on their table. The moon is full as they walk out of the restaurant. They feel full of the feelings of lovey-dovey love. But two months later they stand before a preacher who leads them and their wedding vows. Suddenly the groom is exercising more than lovey-dovey love. He is saying, “All that I am and all that I have is yours, and it is yours forever, as long as we’re alive. I am committing all I am and all I have to you.” That is covenant love; and that is the kind of love this verse is talking about.

Great is his commitment of total love towards us.

And the word faithfulness has to do with God’s commitment to keep every promise He has made. The most wonderful genre of Scripture are the promises God has given us. He has given us so many promises that we can never encounter any difficulty without there being promises there to bear us through them. When we talk about God’s faithfulness we are talking about His absolute commitment to keep every syllable of every word of every promise that he has ever made to us

Praise the Lord, all you nations; extol him, all you peoples. For great is his love toward us [us human beings, us who populate the nations], and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever.

3. Celebration

The last phrase in the verse is celebration: Praise the Lord! This time the phrase is used as an acclamation, an exclamation! The writer just shouts it out! He says, if I may paraphrase: “I am an Old Testament Jew, but I am inviting the people of Russia and China and Nigeria and Brazil and America to praise the Lord and extol Him, because He loves them—every one of us—and He has made promises to us that are eternal in nature, and He will keep them. Oh, for a thousand tongues to sing my great Redeemer’s praise! Praise the Lord, Hallelujah!”

4. Confirmation

So we have an invitation, an explanation, and a celebration. We also have a confirmation of the missionary nature of this Psalm in the book of Romans. When Paul wrote to Rome, he had one thing on his mind, which was reaching the world with the message of Christ. 

Look at the way Paul opens this book in Romans 1:1-5: Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God— the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures regarding his Son, who as to his earthly life was a descendant of David, and who through the Spirit of holiness was appointed the Son of God in power by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord. Through him we received grace and apostleship to call all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith for his name’s sake.

Paul said that the Lord has promised through the Old Testament prophets to bring a Messiah into the world as a channel for our salvation, and that he—Paul—had been appointed to take this message to the Gentiles, to the nations.

Look at Romans 3:29: Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too, since there is only one God, who will justify the circumcised (the Jewish people) by faith and the uncircumcised (the Gentiles, the nations of the world) through the same faith.

Let’s turn over to Romans 10, verses 12 and 13: For there is no difference between Jew and Gentiles—the same Lord is Lord of all and riches blesses all who calls on him, for everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.

The invitation goes out to the Gentiles, to the nations, to Russia and China and Nigeria, and Brazil, and America. Paul continues with his teaching all the way to his climactic finish in chapter 15. There are sixteen chapters to Romans, but the last chapter is an epilogue full of personal greetings. The actual body of content ends in chapter 15. And at the conclusion of all his teachings and arguments he simply erupts in a procession of passages from the Old Testament, showing that God’s love and faithfulness is available to all the world. Look at verse 9 and following:

As it is written: “Therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles; I will sing praises to your name.” Here he quotes from 2 Samuel. Again, it says, “Rejoice, you Gentiles, with his people.” [And that’s a quotation from the book of Deuteronomy]. And again, “Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles; let all the peoples extol him.” And here he quotes from Psalm 117—the short, little missionary song that Jesus sang on His final night.

5. Proclamation

The next day, Good Friday, He gave His life for us. The next day, Saturday, His body rested in the tomb. And the next day, Sunday, the first day of the week, the Lord’s Day, was when He arose. Now what do you think was on His mind coming out of the grave?

Mark 16 tells us how Jesus rose from the dead early on Sunday and appeared to Mary Magdalene. Then He appeared to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. And that evening He appeared to the disciples in the Upper Room. He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the Gospel all creation” (Mark 16:15).

Go into the world, to the nations, and take the Gospel to every creature. But He said something else that night. Look at Luke 24. Just like Mark, Luke tells how Jesus rose early in the morning, how he appeared to the women, how He appeared to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. And that evening He appeared to the disciples in the Upper Room. What did He say, according to Luke? He told them, “This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things” (Luke 24:46-48).

To all the nations, he said. But that’s not all He said that evening. Look at John 20. John also tells how Jesus rose early in the morning, how He appeared to the women, and then that evening He appeared in the Upper Room to His disciples. What did He say to them? Look at John 20:21: “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.”

Jesus must have talked quite a bit about His plan for the disciples to take the Gospel to the entire world. Mark quoted a bit of that message; Luke quoted a different part; and John yet a different part.

Sometime later, the risen Christ met the disciples again on a mountainside in Galilee. What do you think was on His mind? What did He want to say to them? It’s very likely this is the occasion when, as the apostle Paul told us, the risen Jesus appeared to and spoke to 500 people. Look at Matthew 28:16-20: “Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18 Then Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.’” 

He expanded on the message He had given them on Easter evening. What happened next? Well, a few days later the disciples saw Jesus again, this time they were walking with Him on a road on the Mount of Olives. Acts 1:6-9 says, “Then they gathered around him and asked him, ‘Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?’ He said to them: ‘It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.’ After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.

What was on our Lord’s mind when He rose from the dead was exactly what He had sung about the night before His crucifixion: Praise the Lord, all you nations; extol him, all you peoples. For great is his love toward us, and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever. Praise the Lord.

That’s what He talked about on the evening of the first Easter, and three of the disciples remembered various sentences. That’s what He spoke about mid-way through His 40 days of post-resurrection appearances, and Matthew ended his Gospel with that version of the Great Commission. And that’s what He spoke about just before He ascended back to Heaven at the end of His 40 days of post-resurrection ministry.

And consider this. Jesus spoke these words by singing them on the night before His death. He sang this as a sort of Old Testament Great Commission. He was giving us the Great Commission even before His death and resurrection. The Scottish preacher, Andrew Bonar said, “Let us…recall this song to mind…. In so doing, we are using words which the Master used in the Upper Room…. For it is He specially who is the speaker [in this call to praise].”

God always had the whole world on His heart.

I listened to Christopher Ash’s sermon on Psalm 117, and he told the story of a play on London’s West End. The play opened with a table in the middle of the stage and two men sitting on either side of it. There was a phone, and the play began by the phone ringing and one of the actors picking it up and speaking into it. Those were the first lines of the play. On one particular night, the actor forgot his opening lines. He drew a total blank when the phone rang. His mind went paralyzingly empty, and he could not remember the first lines of the play. He looked at it a moment, picked it up, handed it to the other actor, and said, “It’s for you.”

Then Christopher Ash said, in effect, “That’s the Gospel message. It’s for you!”

And it is for you. And it’s for you, China. It is for you, Russia. It is for you, Brazil. It’s for all the world. Our job is to do whatever part the Lord has assigned to us.

Recently I read the autobiography of the Korean evangelist Billy Kim, whom I had known about for many years. His journey toward Christ began when some American soldiers asked him to be their houseboy during the Korean War. One of them had such a burden for the poverty-stricken Korean lad that he sent him to America to be educated at Bob Jones Academy in South Carolina, and there Billy became a Christian. He later returned to Korea where he became a very effective evangelist. 

In his book, Billy talked about traveling to Havana in the summer of 2000 to attend a meeting of the Baptist World Alliance. Billy always had the lost on his heart, and on this trip he carried a heavy burden for Fidel Castro. The possibility of actually seeing Castro was remote to impossible, but Billy prayed for a chance to witness to the man. He even brought with him a special Spanish copy of the Bible to give to him. When it seemed that no meeting would occur, Billy gave the Bible to a high-ranking member of the government to pass on to Castro. Yet every morning while he was there, Billy prayed, “Lord, please lead me to Castro so that I may share the Gospel with him.”

On the very last day of the conference, a Communist official summoned Billy to the presidential office, and he was ushered in to see Castro in his trademark khaki military uniform. The two men talked for about ten minutes, but Castro remained standing and Billy expected to be ushered out quickly. But then Castro invited him into his inner office. Someone gave the Bible back to Billy and he was able to personally hand it to the Cuban dictator. Castro said, “When I was young my mother spent a lot of time reading the Bible to me.” The two men talked for over two hours, and Billy was able to present the Gospel of Christ to the man. The next day, Castro sent workers from the government-run media to the conference and the closing meeting was broadcast all across Cuba.

No one knows if, perhaps on his deathbed, Fidel Castro responded to the Gospel he heard that day. Won’t we be surprised if we find him among the multitudes to greet us when we arrive in New Jerusalem?

Few of us will be able to share Christ in personal conversation with a world leader, but we can all share it with the world around us. We share it when we give to the Lord’s work, when we witness to our friends and neighbors, when we invite others to church, and when we pray for missionaries around the world. And we can tell them one thing about the Gospel that they badly need to know—It’s for you!

6. Exaltation

Let me end with a final observation, which I will call “exaltation.” Psalm 117 doesn’t actually call on the nations to be saved. It calls on the nations to praise the Lord for His great love and eternal faithfulness. Salvation is not the final result. The final result is coming into a life of praise. 

John Piper brought this to our attention a number of years ago in his book, Let the Nations Be Glad, which he opened with these words: 

Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man. When this age is over and countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity. But worship abides forever.

Worship, therefore, is the fuel and the goal of missions. It’s the goal of missions because in missions we simply aim to bring the nations into the white-hot enjoyment of God’s glory. The goal of missions is the gladness of the peoples in the greatness of God.

The world cannot be happy if it isn’t full of praise for the Lord, nor can any of us. The shortest chapter in the Bible has one of the biggest messages of Scripture: Praise the Lord, all you nations; extol him, all you peoples. For great is his love toward us, and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever. Praise the Lord.

Conclusion

I want to close today by inviting you to offer the prayer with me, the one that resides deeply in my heart and memories.

My gracious Master and my God,

Assist me to proclaim,

To spread through all the earth abroad

The glory of Thy name.

The post The Songs Jesus Sang – Part 6 appeared first on RobertJMorgan.com.

The Songs Jesus Sang – Part 5

(About the Lord’s Death and Resurrection)

Psalm 116

Introduction: In my studies last year I came across something I had never known, but should have known. Matthew and Mark both tell us that Jesus and His disciples sang in the Upper Room. I’ve tried to visualize that. I’ve tried to imagine the voice of Jesus when He sang, and the sound of that male ensemble with their voices echoing against the stone walls of that borrowed second-story room. It must have been the most sacred choir in the world, with Jesus among the choir members. I’ve wondered if any of the disciples could play an instrument, or if they sang acapella. We don’t know. 

But there is one thing we do know with relative certainty. We know what they sang. We know the lyrics. According to almost every commentary, there was a certain group of Psalms that were sung by families or groups around the table at the annual Passover meal. It was Psalms 113 through 118. This group of Psalms is called the Egyptian Hallel. The word Hallel means praise, as in Hallelujah. And this section of Psalms is called the Egyptian Hallel because one of the Psalms celebrates Israel’s exodus from Egypt.

I began studying these six Psalms, thinking about them from the perspective of the Upper Room. And I discovered that these six Psalms spell out the Gospel. It’s incredible to think!  Jesus sang out the Gospel on the final night of His earthly life. I want to briefly show you this from Psalm 113, 114, and 115. And then we’ll devote most of our time to Psalm 116.

Review

Psalm 113:5-6 say: Who is like the Lord our God, who dwells on high, who humbles Himself to behold the things that are in the heavens and in the earth. Notice that the eternal God who dwells on high humbled Himself to come down to where we are on earth. That’s the incarnation. There’s a hint of the Christmas story here.Psalm 114 begins: When Israel went out of Egypt…. The theme here is redemption and deliverance from bondage and slavery.Psalm 115:9-11 say: Oh Israel, trust in the Lord; He is their help and shield. O house of Arron, trust in the Lord; He is their help and shield. You who fear the Lord, trust in the Lord. He is their help and shield. “Trust” is the Old Testament verb for faith. Here we are called to a life of faith. It is faith that claims the redemption of the God who humbled Himself to come down and redeem us.Psalm 116, which we’ll look at today, has a clear and unmistakable theme—deliverance from death. We have a God who delivers us from death. Let’s read this entire song. In terms of an outline, it seems to me verses 1-11 tell us about finding victory over death, and verses 12-19 shows us our response, how we should then live as those who have eternal life.

Scripture Reading

I love the Lord, because He has heard
My voice and my supplications.
2 Because He has inclined His ear to me,
Therefore I will call upon Him as long as I live.

3 The pains of death surrounded me,
And the pangs of Sheol laid hold of me;
I found trouble and sorrow.
4 Then I called upon the name of the Lord:
“O Lord, I implore You, deliver my soul!”

5 Gracious is the Lord, and righteous;
Yes, our God is merciful.
6 The Lord preserves the simple;
I was brought low, and He saved me.
7 Return to your rest, O my soul,
For the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.

8 For You have delivered my soul from death,
My eyes from tears,
And my feet from falling.

9 I will walk before the Lord
In the land of the living.
10 I believed, therefore I spoke,
“I am greatly afflicted.”
11 I said in my haste,
“All men are liars.”

12 What shall I render to the Lord
For all His benefits toward me?
13 I will take up the cup of salvation,
And call upon the name of the Lord.
14 I will pay my vows to the Lord
Now in the presence of all His people.

15 Precious in the sight of the Lord
Is the death of His saints.

16 O Lord, truly I am Your servant;
I am Your servant, the son of Your maidservant;
You have loosed my bonds.
17 I will offer to You the sacrifice of thanksgiving,
And will call upon the name of the Lord.

18 I will pay my vows to the Lord
Now in the presence of all His people,
19 In the courts of the Lord’s house,
In the midst of you, O Jerusalem.

Praise the Lord!

Theme: The theme of this Psalm is deliverance from death. I think there are three levels of application here.

1. Psalm 116 and Its Original Writer

The first thing to consider is what these words meant to the original writer. It’s a very personal Psalm. The writer refers to himself 37 times. We don’t know who the writer was, but I have a hunch about it. It fits perfectly into the story of Hezekiah in 2 Kings 20. I’ll not take time to read that story, but I can give you the gist of it. King Hezekiah was one of the best kings in the Old Testament. He served the Lord faithfully, and the prophet Isaiah was one of his best friends and primary advisors. 

One day Hezekiah became very sick, and no one could help him. He was clearly dying. Isaiah went to see him and told him plainly, “You’re dying. You’d better get your affairs in order.” Hezekiah turned in his bed so he was facing the wall, and he sobbed and earnestly asked God to heal him, to extend his life. Isaiah hadn’t even made it out of the palace when the Lord told him, “Go back and tell Hezekiah I will heal him and extend his life by fifteen years. On the third day from now he will be well enough to leave his bed and go up to the temple, the House of the Lord, and worship (see 2 Kings 20:5). Notice that. On the third day he would leave his bed of death and go up to the House of the Lord.

Well, if Hezekiah is the author of Psalm 116, notice how it fits. Let me show you some selected verses: I love the Lord, because He has heard my voice and my supplications. Because He has inclined His ear to me, therefore I will call upon Him as long as I live. The pains of death surrounded me, and the pangs of Sheol laid hold of me; I found trouble and sorrow.  Then I called upon the name of the Lord: “O Lord, I implore You, deliver my soul!”

And verse 8: You have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears…

Verse 17 says: I will offer to You the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and will call upon the name of the Lord. I will pay my vows to the Lord now in the presence of all His people, in the courts of the Lord’s house, in the midst of you, O Jerusalem. Praise the Lord!

I can’t prove Hezekiah wrote this Psalm, but it perfectly fits his situation. He was in the grips of a deadly disease, and he cried out to the Lord, and the Lord delivered him from death by postponing his death. In response, he went up to the temple and worshiped and said, “Praise the Lord.”

2. Psalm 116 and Jesus Christ

But now, let’s consider what might have been on the mind of our Lord Jesus Christ as He sang these words. We have to remember this Psalm is a song of thanksgiving regarding deliverance from death. But there are two ways God can deliver us from death.

First, there is partial victory over death by its postponement, as God did for Hezekiah. But there is total victory over death by resurrection, and that’s what God did for Jesus. Again let’s look at some selected verses. Look at verse 3: The pains of death surrounded me, and the pangs of Sheol laid hold of me;

The NIV says, “The anguish of the grave came over me.” The word “anguish” is the same word in the Greek version of the Old Testament as “agony” in Acts 2:24, when Peter said, “But God raised him [Christ] from the dead, freeing Him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on Him.” Peter was apparently referring to Psalm 116:3 when he preached Christ in Acts 2. God delivered Christ from the anguish of death, not by the postponement of death, but by its reversal.

Now look at verse 8: For You have delivered my soul from death, My eyes from tears…

We recall how Jesus wept in the Garden of Gethsemane, and Hebrews 5:7 (NIV) says, “During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, He offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save Him from death, and He was heard because of His reverent submission.”

Now look at verse 10: I believed, therefore I spoke, “I am greatly afflicted.”

The apostle Paul quotes this verse in 2 Corinthians 4:13-14, saying: It is written: “I believed; therefore I have spoken.” Since we have that same spirit of faith, we also believe and therefore speak, because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you to Himself.

Do you see how verses in Psalm 116 are echoed in the New Testament in a way that points to the resurrection of Jesus Christ?

Now look at verse 13:  I will take up the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord. The cup of salvation! Jesus sang these words in the Upper Room on the very night when He passed around the cup of wine and said, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matthew 26:28). 

Now look at verse 15: Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints. There’s some disagreement about what this verse means. The word “precious” means “dear, rare, treasured, expensive, costly.” We could reasonably paraphrase this to mean, “Cost to the Lord was the death of His Son.” We can never understand the cost! It cannot be calculated by the human mind.

Now look at verses 18-19: I will pay my vows to the Lord now in the presence of all His people, in the courts of the Lord’s house, in the midst of you, O Jerusalem. Praise the Lord!

Let me go back to Hezekiah for a moment. According to 2 Kings 20, Hezekiah was on a bed of death, but God reversed that and on the third day He went into the temple to praise the Lord. On the third day he rose and came into God’s presence. On the third day, Jesus was delivered from death, not by its postponement, but by its total defeat in the face of the Easter resurrection. This is clearly a Psalm of thanksgiving for the way God willingly delivers us from death, either by its postponement or by resurrection. Every word must have been sung by the Lord Jesus with eternal gratitude.

The great Scottish pastor Andrew Bonar wrote, “[Psalm 116] is Christ’s resurrection song, sung by His own lips in the Upper Room at the Passover in anticipation of the darkness of Gethsemane and Calvary passing away into glory.”

The English scholar, Graham Scroggie, wrote, “The words of the Psalm surely remind us that our Redeemer also was delivered, not from dying, but from death, in answer to His prayers, and this must have been in His thoughts as He sang the Psalm that night.”

3. Psalm 116 and You

So we’ve looked at what this Psalm must have meant to its original author, perhaps Hezekiah. We’ve pulled back just a bit of the curtain and considered what this Psalm must have meant to Jesus who sang the words on the night before His crucifixion. But let’s finish by looking at what this Psalm means to you and me.

Without the resurrection of Jesus Christ in our lives, there are a number of things about death and dying that bother us.

First, we wonder what will happen at the moment of death? What will we experience? 

Second, we worry about the possibility of pain, of being unable to get our breath, of suffocating or suffering unbearably in the final moments of death. 

Third, we grieve over the unavoidable separation from our loved ones.

Fourth, we worry about when it will happen. All of us are subject to sudden death at any moment. In the past hour approximately 8,000 people have died somewhere on earth. Some in car wrecks. Some in acts of violence. Some by sudden heart attacks, and others by lingering illnesses. Do you know, Wikipedia has an installment devoted to unusual deaths. It tells about a man here in California who was flying his remote control airplane. The sun blinded him for a moment and he lost track of where it was, and it struck him in the chest and killed him. 

Fifth, we worry about our loved ones dying. This causes me more anxiety than thinking about my own death. We worry about our children when they travel by car, for example.

Six, we worry about death because we’ve been taught by secularism there is nothing for us on the other side. Our lives just end, and pretty soon the world will forget that we even existed. 

William Lane Craig wrote about the implications of this, saying, “If there is no God, then man and the universe are doomed. Like prisoners condemned to death, we await our unavoidable execution. There is no God, and there is no immortality. And what is the consequence of this? It means that life itself is absurd. It means that the life we have is without ultimate significance, value, or purpose.”

There is no good answer for any of this except the ones we find in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The Psalmist here said: You have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, and my feet from falling. I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living.

What is the land of the living? If you think about it, there is a real sense that it is not here on earth. This is the land of the dying. We leave the land of the dying and go to the land of the living.

Psalm 27:13 says, “I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.”

It’s the resurrection of Jesus Christ that changes everything. President Jimmy Carter passed away this week at the age of 100. He once said, “I just asked God to give me a proper attitude toward death. And I found that I was absolutely and completely at ease with death. It didn’t really matter to me whether I died or lived. I have, since that time, been absolutely confident that my Christian faith includes complete confidence in life after death. So, I’m going to live again after I die.”

You’ve probably heard about Alexei Navalny, the Russian dissident who died in a Siberian prison. He opposed Vladimir Putin. In 2020, Navalny was hospitalized with severe poisoning with a nerve agent. He survived only to be imprisoned and mistreated and killed.

What you may not know is that for many years Alexei Navalny was a militant atheist. But there are reports that when he was fighting for his life after being poisoned, he began searching for a satisfying answer to the problem of death. He got in touch with some Christians, and he embraced Jesus Christ as his Savior. In the closing arguments of his case in a Russian court during his sham trial, Navalny said:

“ I don’t know what to talk about anymore, your honor. If you want I’ll talk to you about God and salvation…. The fact is that I am a Christian, which usually rather sets me up as an example for constant ridicule in the Anti-Corruption Foundation, because mostly our people are atheists and I was once quite a militant atheist myself. But now I am a believer, and  that helps me a lot in my activities, because everything becomes much, much easier. I think about things less.  There are fewer dilemmas in my life, because there is a Book in which, in general, it is more or less clearly written what action to take in every situation.”

He was referring to the Bible. In the grip of death, this Russian hero found life, and in that Siberian prison he left the land of the dying to move into the land of the living.

I found an old story of a Christian in the 1800s named Isaac Bridgeman. He was a British minister who developed heart congestion when he was in his mid-fifties. He undoubtedly had all the same kinds of fears we all have. But one day he was out in the garden, in the bower, meditating. Somehow God gave him a glorious sense of the presence of the Lord. His soul and mind were flooded with thoughts of the glories and joys of heaven. He saw the flowers in the garden, and they reminded him of Jesus, the Rose of Sharon. He saw the fruit trees in the garden, and they reminded him of the Tree of Life along the riverside of New Jerusalem. From that moment on, he had perfect peace.

He told his wife, “I may be better tomorrow, and that will be well. I may be worse tomorrow, and that will be well. For the hand of God is on me, the love of God is in me, and the heaven of God is before me….” He passed away shortly thereafter with perfect peace and joy.

Wouldn’t we all like to have such a visitation from the Lord in the bower of a garden! But the truth is we can all do what Jimmy Carter did and ask the Lord to give us a proper attitude toward death. We can all do what Alexei Navalny did and say, “I have a Book.” We can all do what Isaac Bridgeman did and get a strong glimpse of Heaven—of the New Heavens, the New Earth, and the eternal city of New Jerusalem.

The Psalmist said, “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will live in the house of the Lord forever” (Psalm 23:6).

Jesus said: “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, yet shall he live. And whoever lives and believes in me shall never die” (John 11:25-25).

He also said, “And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent” (John 17:3).

The apostle Paul said, “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know. I am torn between the two; I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body” (Philippians 1:21-24 NIV).

He said, “As long as we are in this body we are away from the Lord. For we live by faith and not by sight. We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:6-8 NIV).

The Bible says, “According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. 18 Therefore encourage one another with these words (1 Thessalonians 4:15-18 NIV).

The book of Revelation says: “Then I saw ‘a new heaven and a new earth,’ for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. 2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4 He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death…” (Revelation 21:1-4).

A great old Easter anthem says:

Up from the grave He arose,

With a mighty triumph o’er His foes.

He arose a victor from the dark domain,

And He lives forever with His saints to reign.

Conclusion

So Psalm 113 tells us that God loves us so much He became a man to dwell among us. Psalm 114 talks about how He redeems His people. Psalm 115 tells us that only faith in the true and only God can save us. And Psalm 116 tells us that this salvation offers us victory over death.

Hundreds of years before Christ came to earth, the progress of the Gospel truth was embedded in the very songs He would sing on the last night of His natural life. And these very songs can give us joy in knowing, as Job 19 says, that our Redeemer lives and He shall stand at last on the earth, and even after our bodies perish, this we know, that in our flesh we shall see God.

The post The Songs Jesus Sang – Part 5 appeared first on RobertJMorgan.com.

The Songs Jesus Sang – Part 4

(About Faith)

Psalm 115

Opening: Hello, everyone! Welcome to our series of studies on the Egyptian Hallel, which is the title given to Psalm 113 through 118. Last week we looked at Psalm 114, and today we’re going to focus on Psalm 115. So if you’re able to access your Bible, turn there with me. As you do, I want to tell you that after several years we now have copies of one of my earliest books—On This Day in Christian History. This is a unique daily devotional that tells fascinating stories from Christian history for every day of the year. Most people aren’t going to read a multivolume series on the history of the church, but we can learn some of the stories in one-day doses. Learn about the heroes of the Christian story, along with a few of the villains. Now priced at only 12.99 at the bookstore on my website, Robertjmorgan.com.

Let’s begin today by reading the Scripture for our study—Psalm 115.

Scripture

Not to us, Lord, not to us
    but to your name be the glory,
    because of your love and faithfulness.

2 Why do the nations say,
    “Where is their God?”
3 Our God is in heaven;
    he does whatever pleases him.
4 But their idols are silver and gold,
    made by human hands.
5 They have mouths, but cannot speak,
    eyes, but cannot see.
6 They have ears, but cannot hear,
    noses, but cannot smell.
7 They have hands, but cannot feel,
    feet, but cannot walk,
    nor can they utter a sound with their throats.
8 Those who make them will be like them,
    and so will all who trust in them.

9 All you Israelites, trust in the Lord—
    he is their help and shield.
10 House of Aaron, trust in the Lord—
    he is their help and shield.
11 You who fear him, trust in the Lord—
    he is their help and shield.

12 The Lord remembers us and will bless us:
    He will bless his people Israel,
    he will bless the house of Aaron,
13 he will bless those who fear the Lord—
    small and great alike.

14 May the Lord cause you to flourish,
    both you and your children.
15 May you be blessed by the Lord,
    the Maker of heaven and earth.

16 The highest heavens belong to the Lord,
    but the earth he has given to mankind.
17 It is not the dead who praise the Lord,
    those who go down to the place of silence;
18 it is we who extol the Lord,
    both now and forevermore.

Praise the Lord. 

Review: 

Let’s take a moment to review, and then I’ll show you what I learned from Christopher Ash, a powerful British expositor who is now writer in residence at Tyndale House in Cambridge, in England. Dr. Ash has become my favorite British expositor, and when I listened to his brilliant sermon on Psalm 115, I realized I had missed something very significant. 

According to every commentary and tradition I can find, the six Psalms that begin with Psalm 113 and go through Psalm 118 were set to music and sung at the major Jewish festivals, and also by families at the annual Passover meal, which commemorated the Exodus of Israel from Egypt. They were called the Hallel Psalms because the first word of Psalm 113 is Hallel, or Praise. This is the root of the word Hallelujah. They are called the Egyptian Hallel because they focus on Israel’s deliverance from Egyptian slavery, especially Psalm 114.

Just as we sing Christmas carols during December, Jewish families sang these six hymns every year around the Passover Table. So these are presumably the last songs Jesus sang. The Gospels tell us that on the last night of His natural life, Jesus met with His disciples in an Upper Room somewhere in Jerusalem for the Passover meal. There on the table was the Lamb, along with the bitter herbs and the unleavened bread. The stone room was lighted by flaming lamps, and there on this mystic night the Lord Jesus observed Passover with His closest friends, plus one traitor.

What is so fascinating to me is that these six songs anticipate the Gospel story. Psalm 113 alludes to the incarnation–the act of God humbling Himself to become a man. Psalm 114 is about redemption, how the Lord redeems us from slavery and comes to dwell among us. Now, if God did become human to dwell among us and deliver us from our sins, how do we partake in that? What do we have to do? How do we obtain this? How do we apprehend it? How do we procure it? 

It is by faith, and by faith alone. We simply trust the Lord—and that’s the theme of Psalm 115. If Psalm 113 alludes to the Incarnation and Psalm 114 to redemption, then Psalm 115 tells us that our role is to turn from sin and receive this gift by faith.

What I failed to see in Psalm 115 is the importance of verse 2, so let’s start there: Why do the nations, “Where is their God?”

This Psalm is most likely post-exilic. What does that mean? The nation of Judah and its capital of Jerusalem became so corrupt that God allowed the Babylonian Empire to invade and defeat them in 587 BC. The exiles were deported to Babylon, and we call that the Jewish exile. Psalm 115 is in the last of the five divisions of the Psalms. These were compiled very late, almost certainly after the exile, after they had been taken out of the land. And probably portions of this last part of the Psalms—from Psalm 107 to 150—were written for the remnant of Jews who had returned from exile and had begun to repopulate the land.

Psalm 107 begins, “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever. Let the redeemed of the Lord tell their story—those he redeemed from the hand of the foe, those he gathered from the lands, from the east and west and north and south….” 

This last portion of the Psalms were very likely written and compiled by Ezra, or those around him. But even though a remnant of Jews were back in the land, things were still harsh. They were under the hegemony of other nations, and they were surrounded by enemies. They no longer had a king. They had a tiny bit of territory, but nothing like the past. They were able to finally rebuild their temple, but it looked rather pathetic when compared to that of Solomon.

So their enemies ridiculed them and said, “Where is your God now, Judah? Where is the God you said would help you?”

Christopher Ash said that Psalm 115 was written for the Jews to sing whenever they encountered that question. And they were still singing it when Jesus arrived on the scene and the nation of Israel was still occupied by foreign troops.

And sometimes we have a similar question. “Where is God when I need Him? If God really loves me, what did this happen? Is there really a God, and if so, where is He? Where is God when bad things happen? Where is our God?” 

1. Give God the Glory (Verse 1)

First, let’s give God all the glory. In other words, “Lord, the nations are asking where You are. They see our distress and are mocking us. Lord, please come to our aid; please help us; please guide us—but not because we are worthy of it. No, help us for Your own glory!”

This reminds me of something I wrote in my book, The Red Sea Rules. When we’re in a painful place in life, our first question should not be, “Lord, how did I get into this mess and how can I get out.” The first question should be, “Lord, how can You be glorified through my circumstances?”

Verse 1 also reminds me of Ephesians 2:8 and 9: For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not of works, so that no one can boast. 

When a person decides to trust Jesus Christ for salvation or to find assurance of salvation, they do so on the basis of the love and faithfulness of God; not on the basis of anything they can glory in. We say, “Lord, not on the basis of my own goodness, but on the basis of your love and faithfulness, save me for Your glory.”

A few months ago, a research firm in Great Britain asked people if they believed there was any kind of life at all after death. About half of all British adults believe that. Then they asked that half what was necessary to get to heaven. Eighty-four percent (84%) of those who believe in Heaven said that one must live a good life and be a good person in order to go to Heaven.

But that’s not the answer the Bible gives. The Bible tells us that none of us can be good enough to get to Heaven on our own. The reason has to do with the superb perfections of all the attributes and qualities of the God who is eternal in the Heavens. He is absolute in His perfection and stainless in His glory. He is so pure and holy that nothing with a trace of evil can ever exist in His presence. 

And we all know that even the best person on earth is imperfect in some way, in many ways. Jeremiah 19:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.” That’s why the perfect God became human, to live a sinless life and to offer His righteous life for all of us. We can only go to Heaven on the basis of what He has done for us.

So not to us, Lord, not to us, but to your name be the glory, because of your love and faithfulness.

2. Don’t Trust Any Other “Gods” (Verses 2-8)

In verses 2 through 8, the writer tells us that the people who are asking where our God is are the very ones who are foolish enough to be worshipping gods they themselves have made. 

Why do the nations say, “Where is their God?”   Our God is in heaven; he does whatever pleases him. But their idols are silver and gold, made by human hands. They have mouths, but cannot speak, eyes, but cannot see. They have ears, but cannot hear, noses, but cannot smell. They have hands, but cannot feel, feet, but cannot walk, nor can they utter a sound with their throats.

The very people who are ridiculing our God are the ones who are worshipping gods that cannot speak or see or hear or smell or feel or walk or talk. I’ll tell you where our God is! Our God is in Heaven and He does whatever pleases Him. Your gods are here on earth and they cannot do anything. They are idols.

In biblical times as well as in parts of the world today, people still practice this kind of idolatry, in which they make images of perceived gods and then worship the image they have made. I’ve been in many parts of the world in which I’ve seen people bowing down to idols. The most stunning place was the Golden Pagoda in Yangon, Myanmar. There’s no way to describe it. It’s like a city of gold with a tall golden pagoda in the middle, and everywhere you look people are offering gifts and sacrifices and offerings connected to their Buddhist beliefs. 

But the biblical concept of idolatry is broader than worshipping images and statutes. An idol is something in your life that is more important than it should be. 

Christianity is not an additive to your life, like pouring a bottle of some high-performance liquid into your car’s gas tank. It is not a supplement. You can’t just say, “Well, maybe we need some inspiration or morality in our lives, so let’s go to church more often.”

The Bible says that in all things, Christ must have the preeminence (Colossians 1:18). You have to bring every area of life under His governing authority. Anything that is not under His governing authority—anything in your life that is more important than it should be, more important than Him—is an idol.

So you have to ask yourself, “Is there anything in my life that is more important than it should be?”

The reason this is important is stated in the next verse—Psalm 115:8: Those who make them (idols) will be like them, and so will all who trust in them.

This is a principle that I learned from reading A. W. Tozer’s book, The Knowledge of the Holy. This is one of the top ten books on my library shelves. Chapter 1 is entitled, “Why We Must Think Rightly About God.” I want to read two sentences to you.

Tozer said, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us…. We tend by a secret law of the soul to move toward our mental image of God.”

If your god is sex, you’ll become more and more promiscuous. If your god is money, you’ll become more and more materialistic. If your god is power, you’ll become more and more ruthless. We are transformed into whatever our gods dictate.

If your God is the Lord of the Bible, you will become more and more godly.

Justin Brierley wrote, “I believe we are all made to worship. That instinct runs so deep within us that, if we don’t worship God, we will end up worshipping something else instead. The object of people’s worship is whatever preeminent thing they build their lives around. There are the usual glamorous contenders — money, sex, power. And the less obvious idols too — career, family, fitness. Not that any of these things are bad in themselves, but, as Tim Keller says, idolatry usually involves ‘turning a good thing into an ultimate thing.’”

3. Place Your Faith in the Lord and in Him Only (Verses 9-11)

Let’s go on to the next part of Psalm 115. Verses 9 through 11 tell us to put our faith in the Lord and in Him alone: All you Israelites, trust in the Lord—he is their help and shield. House of Aaron, trust in the Lord—he is their help and shield. You who fear him, trust in the Lord—he is their help and shield.

Some scholars believe this was antiphonal. That is, if this was done in the Upper Room, half the men would sing the first line, and the other would sing the second line. They would go back and forth. But notice we’re told three times to trust in the Lord. Verse 8 said, Those who make (idols) will be like them, and so will all who trust in them.

So don’t do that. Instead, put your trust in the Lord, Israelites, the people of God. Put your trust in the Lord, all the descendants of Aaron—the worship leaders. Put your trust in the Lord everyone, all who fear Him. He is our help. He is a shield. 

If you need help in any area of your life right now, trust in the Lord. Trust Him! If you need protection, safety, a shield, trust in Him. Jesus said, “Have faith in God” (Mark 11:22).

This is the primary human response to God’s grace. We simply believe that He has done things for us that we do not deserve and can never earn, and so we receive it by faith. 

The Bible says, “The righteous shall live by faith…. One is justified by faith…. By faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ…. Through Him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand…. Stand firm in the faith…. Be sound in the faith…. established in the faith…. For we walk by faith, not by sight…. Through the Spirit, by faith, we eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness…. Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith…. (for) without faith it is impossible to please Him… And this is the victory that has overcome the world—even our faith!” (Romans 1:17; 3:28; 5:1-2; 1 Corinthians 16:13; Titus 1:13; Colossians 2:7; 2 Corinthians 5:7; Galatians 5:5; Hebrews 10:22; Hebrews 11:6; 1 John 5:4). 

I’ll give you a very inadequate illustration. I saw a video on the news the other day of a man who had fallen from a hiking trail near San Francisco. The man was clinging to the side of a cliff hardly able to hang on. Far beneath him were treacherous rocks and rugged coastline. The California Highway Patrol sent one of their helicopters, and a crew member was lowered by a cable to grab hold of the man. Imagine being that man in distress. He has fallen. He’s clinging to a cliff but about to fall to his death. He hears a helicopter hovering above him and an emergency responder is descending on a cable. The rescuer comes close to him and shouts, “Grab hold of me!”

Now the man has to make a decision. Can he climb up the hill on his own? Can he survive falling onto the rocks below? Can he jump up and grab the cable and climb up it hand over hand? No. His only salvation depends on trusting the one who has lowered himself to his level and has come to save him. “Trust me,” shouts the man. “Put your arms around me. I’ve got you. You have got to place your faith in the helicopter. You’ve got to place your faith in the crew. You’ve got to place your faith in the cable. And you’ve got to place your faith in me.”

The only way to be saved, to be rescued, is by trusting the One who came down from Heaven, dangling by the cable of love, and who is reaching out His hands to you.

4. Rejoice in God’s Blessings (Verses 12-18)

The last part of Psalm 115 tells about all the blessings that come into our lives when we do this. Look at verses 12 through 18: The Lord remembers us and will bless us: He will bless his people Israel, he will bless the house of Aaron, he will bless those who fear the Lord—small and great alike.

And now, a benediction: May the Lord cause you to flourish, both you and your children. May you be blessed by the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.

Verse 16 is very curious: The highest heavens belong to the Lord, but the earth he has given to mankind. What does that mean? Well, the previous verse said the Lord is the Maker of heaven and earth. Earth is where we live, and Heaven is where He lives. But the God who lives in Heaven is able to bless His people who live on this earth.

The next verse speaks about our eternal life—how the Maker of Heaven and Earth will give us the joys of Heaven forever. Verse 17 says, “It is not the dead who praise the Lord, those who go down the place of silence.”

No, “It is we who extol the Lord, both now and forevermore.” Forever and ever. We will be praising the Lord forever in His Heaven because He has rescued us in a way that simply required us to trust Him and to place Him first in our lives.

5. Praise the Lord (Verse 18)

So, says the last phrase: “Praise the Lord!” It seems to me that in an Old Testament way, this Psalm teaches us Ephesians 2:8 and 9, that we are saved by grace through faith, and that not of ourselves so that no one can boast. It begins by saying, “We cannot save ourselves. Not to us, Lord, not to us, but to your name be the glory because of your love and faithfulness.”

Then it warns us against any substitute for that. We cannot be saved by our own idols, by those things that become more important than they should be. No, we can only be saved by trusting in the Lord. When we do that, He blesses us on earth, and we will praise Him both now and forevermore, throughout the endless years of eternity.

This is the plan of salvation, hidden as it were, interwoven as it were, into the verses of Psalm 115. Psalm 113 speaks of our Lord’s entry into earth. Psalm 114 speaks of His work of redemption. And Psalm 115 tells us this salvation is offered by grace on the basis of faith. And we can trust Him, even if others doubt and belittle Him!

When the world asks us, “Where is your God,” we have an answer. He is in Heaven and He does what pleases Him, and what pleases Him is to bless His people What pleases Him is to bless me even when people around me are doubting His goodness and greatness.

So all of you, trust in the Lord—
    he is our help and shield;

Those who need Him, trust in the Lord—
    he is your help and shield.
You who fear him, trust in the Lord—
    he is our help and shield.The Lord remembers us and will bless us:
    He will bless his people Israel,

The post The Songs Jesus Sang – Part 4 appeared first on RobertJMorgan.com.

The Songs Jesus Sang – Part 3

(About His Redemption)

Psalm 114

Most of us believe there have always been paramedics to rush to our side in emergencies, but that’s not really true. When I was growing up in Elizabethton, Tennessee, the first Rescue Squad was being formed in our community. Some men got together and decided the town needed a rapid response squad. They used an old surplus army truck from World War II as an ambulance; and when that truck wrecked, the captain of the Rescue Squad used his own station wagon, equipped with a rollaway bed. 

One of my earliest memories is my mother being loaded onto some kind of early rescue squad vehicle or ambulance to be taken to the hospital. I was terrified and hid behind a boxwood. I think she had a painful problem with her back, but I didn’t recall that incident until after she passed away in old age and so we never talked about it.

In global terms, the role of paramedics started in the 1960s with a doctor in Ireland. He had done research on heart attack victims and found that men who died from heart attacks usually did so within one hour of the attack. So he began putting doctors on ambulance crews to treat victims of heart attacks more quickly. The teams were called “Flying Squads.”

The idea spread to America, but many American cities were so large there weren’t enough doctors for ride-alongs. So in 1967, the Miami fire department began to teach medical skills to firefighters. These medically trained firefighters became the first paramedics in the United States. But even in 1971, when I was a sophomore in college, there were only twelve paramedic units in the United States. 

Do you know what changed it? The NBC television network began a weekly drama called Emergency about two paramedics assigned to the Los Angeles Fire Department. That show went through 122 episodes. This showed people across America what paramedics could do, what these kinds of rescues would look like. Today this show is honored with a display in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History for the way it helped pioneer the spread of paramedics across America.

Sometimes when we need help, we need it very badly and very quickly. We know we’re in mortal danger and we need someone who knows more than we do, who can do more than we can do, and who can stay calm and collected while they help us.

The Bible calls this a rescuer, a deliverer, a redeemer, a Savior. This is at the heart of the Biblical story. Redemption is when you are saved, when you are rescued. The word “redemption” conveys the idea of being recovered, being released, being delivered. It conveys the idea of an emergency, during which we need someone to save us.

We see this illustrated many times in Scripture, but there are two great occasions that simply grip us with their drama. The first occurred near the beginning of the Old Testament and set the tone for the entire Old Testament story. The other occurred near the beginning of the New Testament and set the tone for the entire New Testament story. 

1. Old Testament Redemption

The first is the Exodus of Israel from slavery in Egypt. That story is told in narrative form in the book of Exodus, but it’s celebrated musically in Psalm 114. This is the passage we’re coming to today, the second in a series of Psalms called the Hallel Songs. Let’s read it.

Scripture—Psalm 114:

When Israel went forth from Egypt,
The house of Jacob from a people of strange language,
2 Judah became His sanctuary, Israel, His dominion.

3 The sea looked and fled; The Jordan turned back.
4 The mountains skipped like rams, The hills, like lambs.
5 What ails you, O sea, that you flee? O Jordan, that you turn back?
6 O mountains, that you skip like rams? O hills, like lambs?

7 Tremble, O earth, before the Lord, Before the God of Jacob,
8 Who turned the rock into a pool of water, The flint into a fountain of water.

Review

This is a very important psalm or hymn because, as I said, it’s the second in a series of psalms we call the Egyptian Hallel. 

The word Hallel means Praise, and this particular collection of Psalms is called the Egyptian Hallel because here in Psalm 114, the song celebrates how God redeemed Israel from bondage in Egypt.

These songs, Psalm 113 through 118, were sung at the major Jewish festivals around the temple. They were also sung by families during the annual Passover meal. According to the Gospels, Jesus and His disciples sang together in the Upper Room on the last night of His natural life. They were celebrating the Passover Supper, and they would have sung this song.

Psalm 113 and 114 were sung before the meal, and I simply cannot imagine what Jesus thought or how He felt as He sang these two songs. As we saw last week, Psalm 113 focuses on the Incarnation. The transcendent, eternal, almighty God whose name is praised from the rising of the sun to the place where it sets, humbled Himself to engage with humanity and lift up the needy and give them exalted places of blessings. It’s a song about the incarnation—God becoming human—the God-Man—the Messiah.

And why did He come? He came to do for us something akin to what He had done for Israel 1400 years before—to redeem us from slavery and bondage and death. Psalm 114 is about His work for us. Psalm 113 focuses on the Incarnation, and Psalm 114 on Redemption.

The thing to notice in Psalm 114 is its parallelism. In other words, every single thought in this Psalm is stated and then repeated. This is a form of Hebrew poetry. There are eight verses, and each verse contains a truth that is stated and then repeated poetically.

Verse 1: The Lord Brought His People Out of Slavery

Look at verse 1:

When Israel went forth from Egypt,
The house of Jacob from a people of strange language…

Every Jewish man, woman, and child would know this is the most incredible moment in the history of Israel. In the book of Genesis, God chose one couple—Abraham and Sarah—to be the channel through which He would rescue the world from sin. A couple of generations later, their descendants—a group of about seventy people—went down to Egypt to find grain and food during a time of regional famine.  They settled in the land of Goshen, which was the eastern side of the River Nile. There they lived and multiplied for several centuries until the King of Egypt viewed them as a threat and enslaved them—an entire nation brought under bondage.

Then in the book of Exodus, the second book of the Bible, God sent Moses to deliver His people from Egyptian slavery and bring them into the land God had always intended for them—the Promised Land. 

Moses went to Pharaoh and said, “Let my people go!” When Pharaoh refused, God sent a series of ten disasters across the land. The Nile River turned to blood, there were supernatural infestations of frogs, lice, and flies. The livestock died in the barns and fields. People broke out with skin ulcers. A locust invasion swept over the land, and then a deep darkness came over Egypt and even at the noontime hour it was as black as sin. Finally, the Lord sent the death angel to kill the firstborn in every family.

Only the Hebrews were spared, and that final plague required a special ceremony among the Jews. Every Jewish family was to take an innocent, helpless lamb, kill it and drain its blood, and paint their doorposts with the blood of the lamb. Then they were to roast the lamb and serve it for supper. The Lord said, “When I see the blood I will pass over you” (Exodus 12:13). By the time the sun rose in the eastern sky, Pharaoh had given up. He was a crushed man, and he released the slaves and they began leaving Egypt—families and clans and tribes, all fleeing so quickly they didn’t have time for the bread to rise.

That entire story is told in Exodus 1 through 12, but it’s summed up here in a single verse: When Israel went forth from Egypt, The house of Jacob from a people of strange language…

Verse 2: The Lord Dwelled Among His People

What happened next? The people started a mass migration unlike anything known to history. Chapter 13 says, “By day the Lord went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so they could travel by day or night. Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people” (Exodus 13:21-22).

The Jewish scholar Alfred Edersheim says this was “the Shechinah, or visible Presence, which afterwards rested upon the Most Holy Place.”

Almighty God came and dwelled among His people. This manifestation of God’s presence was sometimes called the “Angel of the Lord,” and most conservative Bible scholars believe this was the Second Person of the Trinity, the pre-incarnate Christ. But here is Psalm 114, it’s simply summed up in one verse:

2  Judah became His sanctuary, Israel, His dominion.

Most of us know the word “sanctuary,” but what does it mean? The Hebrew term simply means “a holy place.” Judah, representing the twelve tribes, became the dwelling place for the holy God. The word dominion means the realm over which one rules. 

When I was in college, the Jesus Movement produced a new kind of music for the church, and one of the songs was by Ralph Carmichael. It talked about how vast and powerful God is, how He flung the stars into space and how he rules over land and sea. But, asked the song, “What to me?” Then the key lines said:

Till by faith I met Him face to face,

And I felt the wonder of His grace,

Then I knew that He was more than just a

God who didn’t care,

Who lived a way out there….

Now He walks beside me day by day,

Ever watching o’er me lest I stray,

Helping me to find the narrow way,

He’s everything to me.

This was the Exodus experience. God redeemed His people, and then He joined them on their journeys.

Verse 3: The Lord Parted the Red Sea and the Jordan River

What happened next? Pharaoh changed his mind and decided to send his armies to annihilate the escaping multitudes. The Israelites became trapped by the Red Sea, and they were in a hopeless situation. Then God told Moses to stretch out his hand over the sea, and a series of uncanny phenomena unfolded with miraculous drama. The pillar of light and darkness moved over the children of Israel and positioned Himself between them and the Egyptians. Then the wind picked up and began tugging at the waters of the Red Sea. The waves rose up to the North and the South, and became mighty mountains of liquid, and a dry pathway formed through the sea like a valley of escape. It was all lit up like a football field all through that never-to-be forgotten night as the Israelites passed through the sea with a towering wall of water to their right and to their left. 

Forty years later, something similar happened at the Jordan River, which was rampaging at flood stage. The waters parted, and the God of Israel who had led the Israelites out of Egypt now led them into the Promised Land. I’ve written about both these stories in The Red Sea Rules and the Jordan River Rules. These were twin miracles, paralleling signs, and the entire story of the Exodus is bookended with parting waters.

All of this is summed up in Psalm 114:3: The sea looked and fled; the Jordan turned back.

Verse 4: The Lord Gave Israel the Holy Land

Then what happened? God led Israel into the hills and mountains and valleys of the land He had prepared for them, the hills of Judea, the mountains of Samaria, the foothills of Galilee. The entire land—the Promised Land, Beulah Land—became alive. 

Verse 4 puts this poetically: The mountains skipped like rams, the hills, like lambs. Whenever the Jews are in the Promised Land, Israel flourishes like a garden. When the Jews are not in the Promised Land, it languishes like a wasteland. It’s sometimes said that the land of Israel and the Jewish people are like body and soul. When the Jews are not in Israel, the land is dead. When they are, the land thrives. 

So the first half of Psalm 114 is a poetic retelling of the Exodus from the Plagues of Egypt to the Conquest of the land. 

Verses 5-8: The World Should Tremble Before God

The last half of the Psalms, the last four verses, all lead to one great implication. Look at them. Verses 5 and 6 are rhetorical questions: What ails you, O sea, that you flee? O Jordan, that you turn back? O mountains, that you skip like rams? O hills, like lambs?

In other words, why did all of creation cheer when God redeemed Israel? The answer isn’t given, but it is obvious. Because the Creator of the Earth—the Maker of the seas and rivers and mountains and hills—was unleashing His power. And what should modern-day Pharaohs do? What should be the response of people on the earth? They should tremble and fear and revere the God of redemption. The song ends: Tremble, O earth, before the Lord,
Before the God of Jacob, who turned the rock into a pool of water, the flint into a fountain of water.

2. New Testament Redemption

That was the song Jesus and His disciples sang before they began their Passover meal, the same meal that had been served in Jewish homes for 1400 years, since the original Passover. And nothing could have been more appropriate, because Jesus was about to unleash the Exodus all over again—not just for Israel but for all the world. Jesus fulfilled the Exodus story.

David Murray wrote, “The exodus was not only the most important redemptive event in the Old Testament; it also provided the redemptive language and concepts for a large number of prophetic predictions. This led Israel to expect something similar to the exodus redemption, though higher and better, in the future.”

He is the One who brought His people, including you and me out of slavery. He dwells among us. He parted the waters for us. He brought us out so that He could bring us in. He leads us into His Promised Land of eternal and abundant life.

I took the liberty of rewriting Psalm 114 from a New Testament vantage point. Here is the way we might interpret it through the prism of the Gospel.

When you and I went forth from Satan’s bondage,
The followers of Jesus Christ from an evil world,
We became His sanctuary; the church, His dominion.

We crossed the Red Sea of His blood and the river of His redemption.

We felt as if the mountains were shaking and the hills were singing.
Why did the Red Sea of His blood free us? What caused the river of redemption to welcome us?
Why are the mountains shaking and the hills dancing?

The whole world should be shaking before the Lord, before our redeeming God,
Because He has satisfied our thirst and given us endless rivers of living water.

Recently I listened to Jim Boone tell his story of redemption. He said he enrolled at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, but his real focus was surfing and going to parties. One day near the end of his senior year of college, he came across some men—members of the Gideons International—on the sidewalk giving away New Testaments. He took one and put it in his backpack. As soon as school was out, Jim traveled from North Carolina to California to join the surfing culture. He met two lifeguards who told him they were going down to Mexico to surf, and Jim went with them. They stayed there a couple of months, surfing and having fun. One day Jim went out into the surf with his camera to take pictures of his buddies surfing.  When he was about 200 yards from shore, his buddy paddled up to him and shouted: “Get out of the water. We’re swimming in a school of feeding sharks.” He frantically tried to swim to shore, but he was terrified and, he later said, two thoughts came to him. First, I’m about to die. Second, I am not going to heaven! 

Jim did make it to shore, and he decided to go back to North Carolina because he knew a surfing friend there who could tell him how to become a Christian. He boarded a bus in Mexico, but at two in the morning it was stopped by Mexican soldiers. They boarded the bus, pulled Jim off, and pointed their machine guns at him. For the second time within a few days, Jim thought he was going to die. The men started going through Jim’s backpack, looking for drugs. One of them pulled out the New Testament he had placed there at the beginning of the summer.

“What’s this?” they asked.

“My Bible,” Jim said.

The officer looked at the Bible, smiled, put his pistol back in his holster, waved the men away, and escorted Jim back onto the bus. Not long afterward, Jim arrived back in North Carolina, found his friend, and asked him how to be saved. His buddy told him how to have a personal relationship with God. Jim didn’t receive Christ right then, so his friend suggested he read the book of Romans. Jim read through the book of Romans. 

Jim went back to his parents’ house and read Romans. He came to chapter 6, which says: “Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness” (Verses 16-18).

Jim read through the rest of Romans and went on to 1 and 2 Corinthians. Then he came to Galatians and to chapter four, where he read, “But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law  to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship. Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir” (Galatians 4:4-7).

Finally he came to Ephesians 2, and he read these words: “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9not by works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:1-9).

At that moment, Jim said, “It was as if the Lord Jesus Himself stood in my bedroom.” He sank down to his knees and prayed, “Lord, I’m so sorry. I never realized. Will you save me?” When he stood back to his feet, he knew he was a changed man. Soon he led his girlfriend to Christ. And they went on to establish a Christian home and to be workers for the King of Kings.

God took a young man who thought the greatest thing in life was surfing and going to parties, and He redeemed Him from a life of slavery to sin and death. 

Conclusion

Have you ever thought about the parallels between Moses and Jesus? In Deuteronomy 18, Moses said that in the last days God would raise up “a prophet like me” from among the Israelites, whom the people were to obey (Deuteronomy 18:15). Later generations understood that Moses was predicting the Messiah, who would be, in some ways, a prophet like him. How, then, did Moses prefigure Jesus?

In Acts 7:20, Stephen said, “At that time Moses was born, and he was no ordinary child.” Well, neither was Jesus.Moses was the son of a Hebrew peasant girl. So was Jesus.The baby Moses was placed in a basket; the baby Jesus was placed in a manger.The ruling king tried to kill baby Moses. The same thing happened to baby Jesus.Moses left a life of royalty to redeem God’s people. So did Jesus.The Israelites rejected Moses. In the same way, Jesus came unto His own, and His own received Him not (John 1:11).The voice of God spoke from Heaven affirming Moses’ leadership. The voice of the Father spoke from Heaven affirming Jesus’ sonship.Moses performed miracles. So did Jesus.Moses was a shepherd. So was Jesus.Moses was a great teacher. So was Jesus.According to 1 Corinthians 10:2, Israel was baptized into Moses in the cloud and the sea. And all of us are all baptized into Christ by His death and resurrection.Moses fasted forty days on Mount Sinai. Jesus fasted forty days on the Mount of Temptation.Moses came out of Egypt; and the Bible says of Jesus: “Out of Egypt I have called my Son.”Moses parted the Red Sea. Jesus stilled the storms of Galilee.Moses fed the multitudes in the wilderness. Jesus fed the multitudes in Galilee.Moses gave people bread that came down from Heaven. Jesus said He was the bread that came down from Heaven.Moses gave people water to drink from a rock. The Bible says that rock represented Christ, who gives us living water (1 Corinthians 10:4).Moses met with God on the mountain and His face glowed with the glory of God. Jesus was enveloped in a cloud of glory on the Mount of Transfiguration and His face glowed like the sun.Moses choose twelve spies to spy out the land; Jesus chose twelve disciples to change the world.Moses appointed seventy elders who led Israel. Jesus appointed seventy disciples to spread the Gospel.Moses led his people out of the bondage of slavery; Jesus leads us out of the bondage of sin.Moses mediated the Old Covenant; Jesus mediated the New Covenant.Jesus said, “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up” (John 3:14).Moses died outside the promised land. Jesus died outside Jerusalem.Moses made a remarkable appearance after his death on the Mount of Transfiguration; Jesus was seen many times, and on one occasion by up to 500 people, after His resurrection.

The prologue of John says, “For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (John 1:17).

Jesus said, “If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for He wrote about me” (John 5:46).

The Book of Colossians says that these Old Testament events were “a shadow of things to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.”

Revelation 15:3 tells us that in Heaven we’ll sing the song of Moses and of the Lamb, saying, “Great and marvelous are your deeds, Lord God Almighty. Just and true are your ways, King of the nations.

Hebrews 3 says: “Therefore, holy brothers and sisters, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, whom we acknowledge as our apostle and high priest. He was faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses was faithful in all God’s house. Jesus has been found worthy of greater honor than Moses, just as the builder of a house has greater honor than the house itself. For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything.   “Moses was faithful as a servant in all God’s house,” bearing witness to what would be spoken by God in the future. But Christ is faithful as the Son over God’s house. And we are his house, if indeed we hold firmly to our confidence and the hope in which we glory” (verses 1-6).

How amazing that when Jesus gathered with His disciples in the Upper Room on the night before His crucifixion, with the roasted Passover Lamb sitting in the middle of the table, they would sing this song—Psalm 114—the song of the redeemed!

It was no accident, not a coincidence. It was the plan of God to impress upon you and me how much we need redemption, more than anything else in the world. We need One who is greater than Moses. We need Jesus, the Lamb of God, who saves us by grace through faith, who brings us out to bring us in, and who makes us tremble—not with fear, but with joy—at His amazing grace.

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