Monthly Archives: September 2009

Psalm 28:1 (ESV)

Of David.

To you, O Lord, I call;

my rock, be not deaf to me,

lest, if you be silent to me,

I become like those who go down to the pit.

This verse amounts to saying “I cannot live without communion with my God”. And this should be the attitude of every believer. The thought that we might pray and God would close His ears to our prayers is a terrifying thought. Believers can be guilty of the worst kind of presumption. That of believing that no matter what, God is always there for us. Verses such as Hebrews 13:5 (“I will never leave you or forsake you”) will be quoted with great confidence, never taking into account that it is dealing with contentment.

The guaranteed presence of God in hearing our prayers, working for our good, and giving us everything we need is a great truth. But God is not our hand servant. He is the Ruler of all the created order and we are His by His sovereign choice. We are His children by a loving grace and it is always a privilege to be able to go to Him in prayer and make our requests known.

So, if this verse does not encourage presumption what should we take from it? What does it teach us? It teaches us that without Him we can do nothing. It teaches us that we are not the ones who provide anything for God. He provides for us. God chooses to use us to accomplish His purposes but let us never think that if we do not do what He calls us to do then His work will not get done.

This is a tremendous statement about the mercy of God. He loves us and that is demonstrated in His provision. If God does not listen to us and help us then we are completely without hope.

This text is a countermeasure to the all too prominent belief that we can do the small stuff and God will help us with the big; that God is there for us if we get into trouble but we can do fine otherwise. Make no mistake. David is calling here from a position of great trouble. But that does not mean that we only need God then.

Perhaps times of great trouble are the only times when we sense the need for God. But the One who sees the sparrow fall is the One who must put our daily bread on the table or it will not get there. We need to remember that we are heard by God because of the work of Christ on our behalf and the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit.

David did not know of Christ and the Holy Spirit was not yet given, in his time, in the same way He has been in ours. How then could he be heard by God in his prayers? God honoured the faith of the Old Testament saints. Believing saints of the Old Testament were heard because of their faith. They believed in the Promise that God was working toward fulfilling, even though they did not know what it was. But they knew the sacrificial system was insufficient. They knew that a Messiah was promised. They knew God had something better in store for the future. Why were God’s ears not deaf to David’s pleas? The intercessory work of Jesus Christ and the promise of David’s sins being forgiven because of His faith. Jesus died for David’s sins.

Amos 7:1-9 (ESV)

This is what the Lord God showed me: behold, he was forming locusts when the latter growth was just beginning to sprout, and behold, it was the latter growth after the king’s mowings. [2] When they had finished eating the grass of the land, I said,

“O Lord God, please forgive!

How can Jacob stand?

He is so small!”

[3] The Lord relented concerning this;

“It shall not be,” said the Lord.

[4] This is what the Lord God showed me: behold, the Lord God was calling for a judgment by fire, and it devoured the great deep and was eating up the land. [5] Then I said,

“O Lord God, please cease!

How can Jacob stand?

He is so small!”

[6] The Lord relented concerning this;

“This also shall not be,” said the Lord God.

[7] This is what he showed me: behold, the Lord was standing beside a wall built with a plumb line, with a plumb line in his hand. [8] And the Lord said to me, “Amos, what do you see?” And I said, “A plumb line.” Then the Lord said,

“Behold, I am setting a plumb line

in the midst of my people Israel;

I will never again pass by them;

[9] the high places of Isaac shall be made desolate,

and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste,

and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword.”

It is very easy for people to think they are doing so well when they compare themselves to others, or set up a standard of behaviour of their own. For instance, if my goal today is to behave better than a terrorist or a murderer or even better than my neighbour, I may have a very successful day. I may be able to go to bed tonight knowing that I have achieved the goal I set.

Unfortunately, I do not get to set the goals of behaviour for my life. God sets them. And they are very high. In fact they are unreachably high. They are so high that not only do I not reach them, I cannot. To make matters worse He demands absolute perfect adherence to the standards that He shows me. This is a no win situation.

It is the situation that God and Israel were in when Amos was receiving messages from God to record as his prophetic book. God has determined to judge Israel. When Amos sees how devastating the plague of locusts is upon Israel, he prays for God to relent from it and God graciously answers his prayer. When God decides to judge Israel with a fire that was to consume the land again, Amos prayed out of concern for Israel and God heard and did as Amos prayed.

Then God showed Amos a wall and a plumb line. By itself the wall seemed to be straight and sound. Next to the plumb line however Amos could see that the wall was far from what it needed to be and was going to fall.

The plumb line is God’s standard. The wall is what Israel had erected and the two were far from the same. Amos does not pray. He now knows that Israel is not just a little bit off. They are not the least bit close to what God has called them to.

The wall is going to fall, not because God destroys it so much as that whatever we build without the guidance of the plumbline of God’s word and grace cannot stand.

There are at least two lessons here:

1) We are far more crooked than we realize. We need to compare ourselves, not with a wicked world but with the Word of God. Then and only then will we realize just how crooked we are.

2) The only One who ever walked the plumbline that God measures us with was Jesus Christ. He and He alone was perfect and fit for heaven. He died as a penalty for us because only He had no sin of his own to pay for. Only His perfect righteousness can stand the test of the scrutiny of God and if we don’t have His righteousness counted as ours we cannot measure up.

Today, look at what God says His standards are as recorded in the Scriptures. Then see how the Bible points out to us how only Christ can meet them and only through faith can we hope to be accepted by God. Jesus Christ is as straight as the plumbline of God. And that is how God will see you if you trust in His Son.

Amos 6:1-6 (ESV)

“Woe to those who are at ease in Zion,

and to those who feel secure on the mountain of Samaria,

the notable men of the first of the nations,

to whom the house of Israel comes!

[2] Pass over to Calneh, and see,

and from there go to Hamath the great;

then go down to Gath of the Philistines.

Are you better than these kingdoms?

Or is their territory greater than your territory,

[3] O you who put far away the day of disaster

and bring near the seat of violence?

[4] “Woe to those who lie on beds of ivory

and stretch themselves out on their couches,

and eat lambs from the flock

and calves from the midst of the stall,

[5] who sing idle songs to the sound of the harp

and like David invent for themselves instruments of music,

[6] who drink wine in bowls

and anoint themselves with the finest oils,

but are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph!

Comfort is the enemy of righteousness. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. While Israel is being punished for its sins, Judah enjoys its luxury and peace and gives no thought to its own ways. They seem to believe that because what happened to Israel did not happen to them then they are safe indefinitely. It never occurs to them that because they commit the same sins as those who are being punished that they are going to suffer as well.

Presumption. From a personal to a community to a national level, it is so easy to regard our ease as the default position that cannot be disturbed. Such thinking is foolish. God is no respecter of persons. The greed, immorality, materialism, idolatry that marks our culture and far too often our churches, cannot escape the judgement of God. It is time now to awake from our slumber and know that we are going to reap what we sow. The work of Jesus Christ in His life death and resurrection does all that needs to be done to take away all the judgement of God for all our sin. We are saved by grace.

But it is the absence of grace that can live believing that sin will be ignored by God in us while it is dealt with severely in others. The lifestyle we live as believers in this part of the world while many Christians, and non-Christians, suffer in other parts is surely a mercy from God. But it is not due to our spirituality. And if we bask in our North American comforts and never consider that the reason we have so much is so that we can alleviate the suffering of others (both in our own neighbourhoods and abroad), we are committing grave sin. Perhaps it is a matter of being unregenerate. The judgement that came upon Judah was severe. We have no reason to believe that God will treat us less severely than He did them. We need to wake up.

Then there is the whole matter of not grieving over what has happened to their brothers in the north. They are not grieved over the sin of Joseph. They can live lives of ease while faced with the horrible sufferings of their kin. Their selfishness is not just a matter of thinking that they will not suffer like others have. What God is more concerned about is that the sin that brought Israel under God’s judgement does not break the hearts of those in the south. Sin should break the hearts of those who are redeemed. Absence of grief over sin is an indication of very serious spiritual sickness and may be an indication that there is no saving faith present. Believers are those who rejoice in God and have their hearts broken over what breaks His.

To not grieve over sin is to have no heart for God. The sin that should have broken the people of Judah’s hearts was affluence accompanied by heartlessness.Judah’s real problem is that they do not know God. And if we are not grieved for the glory of God over the sin and suffering all around us we don’t know Him either.