Monthly Archives: February 2010

Psalm 34:12-13 (ESV)

What man is there who desires life

and loves many days, that he may see good?

[13] Keep your tongue from evil

and your lips from speaking deceit.

We all want to make our mark. We want to know that our lives were not wasted, that what we believed and accomplished helped make the world a little bit of a better place. We would like to think that when it comes time for us to die there will be some sadness. At our funeral we hope that there are at least six men strong enough to carry us out who came because they are heart broken at our death. We want to live long enough to make a difference and we want to see the difference that we have made.

Want to see that your life meant something good? Watch your mouth. Be honest. That is what Psalm 34 12-13 says to us. This is not talking about eternal life that comes by faith. We are not saved because we are honest, although it is true that truly saved people will not be liars (Revelation 21:8). But these verses are talking about a person who demonstrates the changed behaviour of someone who has really come to know God. One of the marks of the redeemed will be honesty. He will be a man of integrity, a man of honesty, a man who does not slander other with his words. A man who does not plot behind people’s backs to get ahead. A man who says what he thinks and thinks good things.

Depart from evil. How often do we hear of executives in companies who have been discovered to be stealing or falsifying the books or cheating investors? They desire life. They want money and all the comforts it brings. And they believe the lie that lying and dishonesty and duplicity will bring it for them. And they become mere shells of men. The one who truly wants to accomplish something worth accomplishing will run in horror from such things.

There will be opportunities to embrace evil. There will be chances to dive into a life of immorality, and emptiness and greed. And it will produce anything but the good that he began his career with. The board rooms of the nation are littered with the immoral, dishonest memories of men and women who got sidetracked from a life of service to mankind and doing good by becoming a part of a sorry chase after all the wrong things. By the time they wake up it was too late. They followed the dictates of a sinful heart into all the wrong places and the words at their funeral will be anything but glowing, if the words uttered there are true at all.

The solution is to get the dictates of the heart repaired. This is what the Gospel does. It delivers us from evil. It makes people new creatures in Christ. It changes people from evil to good.

Are there honest non-believers? Of course. And we rejoice that there are. We can speak of them another time. The thought today from these verses is addressed to those who desire to achieve good. The Bible tells you how. It also tells you what to do to be the person that you long to be. You cannot be that on your own.

You need to be changed from the inside out. This is what Jesus accomplishes through His life, death and resurrection. You are not good. But God promises to credit you with the very sinless righteousness of Jesus Christ if you will come to Him and seek His forgiveness and rescue from a heart that cannot repair itself. It is glorious truth and it is for all who will hear and believe. Or as this Psalm also says:

“let the humble hear and be glad” – verse 2

“none of those who take refuge in Him will be condemned.” – verse 22

Psalm 31:5-7 (ESV)

Into your hand I commit my spirit;

you have redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God.

[6] I hate those who pay regard to worthless idols,

but I trust in the Lord.

[7] I will rejoice and be glad in your steadfast love,

because you have seen my affliction;

you have known the distress of my soul,

It’s a blunt forthright statement. “I hate those who pay regard to worthless idols”. The world is full of people who bow down to false gods. There are those who bow down to literal images of stone and metal and wood. There are those who bow down to gods that are a creation of their own imagination and there are those who bow down to gods that have millenia of tradition behind them so that their adherents believe that the gods are real. And then there are those who believe that they do not worship anything at all but are still guilty of idolatry because they virtually worship themselves or science or the good of humanity. Idolatry is the predominant sin of the ages in every corner of the world.

So when Psalm 31 says “I hate those who bow down to worthless idols” does this mean that we should harbour active hatred in our hearts for those who, even faithfully, worship what is not? And what would such hatred lead to and how would it be expressed? And what about all the other Bible texts that talk about loving our enemies and having compassion on the ignorant and seeking to convince them of the truth of the Gospel? Understand the verse before us as not contradicting the love that is to mark believers in the Gospel.

We do not hate people. We do not want them dead or think it legitimate to end their lives.

In the Psalm before us the hatred amounts to ignoring them when it comes to seeking help in our times of trouble. Verse 5 says – “Into your hands I commit my spirit” and this means that we do not put our trust anywhere or in anyone, else. This is what verse 6 (and the rest of the Psalm) plainly states.

I hate those who worship idols but I trust in the Lord.

The opposite of trust in God is hatred of false gods. The hatred is not trusting their help or advice or seeking guidance from them or their gods when we are needy. How do you feel when you say “hello” to people and they intentionally refuse to answer? They are sending you a message. They are telling you that you are not worthy of their time. They are telling you that you have done something to them that they are holding against you. They haven’t done anything bad to you but they are sending a message of rejection, resentment, and yes, even hatred. That is how we treat idol worshippers. We do  not ignore them. We ignore their gods. We will talk to them but we will not talk to their gods. We will not grant that their system is just as valid as ours. And when you treat someone’s god like that it will be taken very seriously. You are telling them they are wrong, that their gods cannot help and that those gods are not worth your time.

Also remember that this Psalm is Messianic. It points us to the cross when Jesus cried verse 5 as His last words before He died. Even though God had turned His back on His Son as He died on the cross. Even though Jesus is being punished for the sins of others. Even though Jesus has not been heard in His cries of anguish, He knows that there is nowhere else to put His trust than in Him. God’s ways are righteous altogether and even when He calls us into the valley of the shadow of death we will go nowhere else.

That is a great insult to all the other belief systems that claim to be better than that. We believe (know) that there is only one God and that He is three Persons of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We will call upon the only God there is God and Him alone. There is no one and nothing else to call upon.

And since that is the case, we will seek to convince others who do not believe in this One true God that He is the God who will receive them and save them and forgive them. We will do that because we love them and want them to know the wonder of worshipping the One God that is.

Luke 1:13-18 -But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. [14] And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, [15] for he will be great before the Lord. And he must not drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb. [16] And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, [17] and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.” [18] And Zechariah said to the angel, “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years.”

Gabriel (see verse 19) visits Zechariah to announce to him that he and his up-till-now barren wife are going to have a son. They are “advanced in age” (verse 7, 18), meaning that the ability to produce children is biologically impossible. Of course nothing is impossible with God and we have seen similar things happen in the Scriptures before.

But note carefully what Gabriel says to Zechariah in verse 13. “Your prayer has been heard”. And then note what Zechariah says in verse 18. “How shall I know this?” It is clear that he has some doubts about whether what Gabriel says is true. Then why was he praying? Answer? He wasn’t. He used to. When he and Elizabeth were sexually active and menopause hadn’t set in and the sperm count was high. He prayed then. But he hasn’t prayed about this for a long time. We know it because he simply does not believe what Gabriel has told him. How long since they stopped praying about this? A year? Ten? Thirty? We do not know. But this we know. That even though it has been a long time since the prayer was made, God has not forgotten about it. He could have answered it while they were still producing all the necessary elements required for a child to be conceived, but He had a better idea.

A prayer has been put on hold. And at just the right time God declares that it is now time to answer it. And He does, in accordance with a plan hatched before He created the world.

This is just too incredible.

What have you prayed that you think God has said “no” to? God does say “no” quite often. That loved one who died is not going to come back to life. But there are other prayers that you may have forgotten, that God is simply reserving to answer when the time is right. It may get answered even after you have died. It may get answered and you never know it.

It needs to be observed here as well that it was not Zechariah’s faith that caused the prayer to be answered. There are many sellers of spiritual snake oil who want you to believe that the secret ingredient to having your prayers answered is the strength of your faith. Zechariah’s faith regarding this prayer was non-existent. There was hope and faith at one point, but not any longer. And God purposely waited that long to answer the prayer to let Zech (and us) know that it is not a matter of us, our faith, our biology, our talent … that is the deciding factor in our prayers. It is Him.

You can pray with a little faith or a lot. But you cannot pray without it. In fact, you won’t.

What a glorious picture this is of our God. The prayer was made. The prayer was heard. The time passed when it was thought possible for it to be answered. So it was scratched off the prayer list. But God is not bound by time as we are. He does not forget our prayers.

Take that today and run with it. It is a fabulous encouragement for the prayer warriors who refuse to give up in making their requests to God. It is even an encouragement to those who think that some of their prayers will never be answered. We just do not know. And that is just one of the things that astound us about Him.

What a great God.

Genesis 26:6-11 – So Isaac settled in Gerar. [7] When the men of the place asked him about his wife, he said, “She is my sister,” for he feared to say, “My wife,” thinking, “lest the men of the place should kill me because of Rebekah,” because she was attractive in appearance. [8] When he had been there a long time, Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out of a window and saw Isaac laughing with Rebekah his wife. [9] So Abimelech called Isaac and said, “Behold, she is your wife. How then could you say, ‘She is my sister’?” Isaac said to him, “Because I thought, ‘Lest I die because of her.’ ” [10] Abimelech said, “What is this you have done to us? One of the people might easily have lain with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon us.” [11] So Abimelech warned all the people, saying, “Whoever touches this man or his wife shall surely be put to death.”

I went to a pastors’ meeting yesterday where some comments were made about the fact that heroes today are not what they used to be. They are neurotic, unsure of themselves, sinful. We need heroes who inspire and exemplify the faithfulness that God calls us to. There is truth to that, but I am so glad that the heroes provided for us in the Scriptures have all their foibles exposed for us to see. We aren’t told a great deal about the life of Isaac. He seems to be more of a connection between Abraham and Jacob than a real patriarch himself. But we are told a little bit. And it’s not all great.

A few points about this less than stellar performance by one of the fathers of the faithful.

1) The sins of the fathers. Isaac learned this sin from his father Abraham. Abraham did this very thing – twice. We teach more by example than be instruction. Rarely will we raise a child above ourselves.

2) Omniscience. Isaac lies because he has taken upon himself the ability to forecast the future. He sees his wife’s beauty. He sees men who like beauty and who are fairly ruthless. He puts a scenario together that he is convinced will happen if he does not come up with a plan. This is where worry and faithlessness and abandonment of God come from. We trust our prognostications more than the power of God.

3) Selective memory. Isaac remembers what his father did in a similar situation but he does not remember that God was not pleased about it – or he just doesn’t care.

4) Selfishness. See verse 9. Isaac was not concerned about his wife. He did not care that he was sinning against her as well as against God. He cares more about his own life.

Ah, the great patriarchs. Isaac is not one of them because of his natural qualities, but because of the grace of God. It would be wrong for us to read the sins of these great men and shake our heads as if we would have done better. We would not. We do not. There is a powerful Scriptural message that if God can fulfil His purposes through the bunch that we read of in Genesis, then He can use us: not because we are better, but because God still is able to fulfil His purposes – even through us. This is not about excusing our sin. But it is about God being able to use ordinary jars of clay to show His glory. What a God!

Psalm 33:10 – The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing; he frustrates the plans of the peoples.

A good look at the history of nations would demonstrate that world leaders make plans that fail. The examples of this are myriad. Napoleon’s plans to rule Europe and Russia. Hitler’s plans to eradicate the Jews. Canada’s goals to end “child poverty” (an odd concept to me – are there hungry children living in homes where the parents are well off?). The nations of the world gather together in Copenhagen to talk about climate change and what can be done about it and they set goals for CO2 emissions to be reduced to a certain level by a certain date. Not a person on the planet knows if the determined goals will be reached. They have failed to reach them before.

Why is that? Psalm 33:10 tells us that it is because God brings the counsels of the nations to nothing. If all the joint plans of all the nations of the world always succeeded the hubris would be tangible. It is bad enough without success. One can only guess with chagrin how arrogant the world’s leaders would be if all their plans came to pass as they had envisioned. God will tolerate no rivals.

That is what the account of the tower of Babel is about. Nations gather together and suppose to be able to reach the heavens all by themselves. Now nations suppose that they can make the planet liveable, end war, bring an end to poverty and war and hatred. It is laughable and the God of heaven does laugh at them (Psalm 2:1-4).

The world would be a much more morally corrupt place if the counsels of the nations all came to pass as they were planned. How we should be thankful that God will not allow that to happen. Let us pray that in their futility the leaders of the world will realize that making the world a fit place to live will require the heart of all humans to be radically changed.

They cannot do that. But God is doing it and He will bring it to pass. There is coming a new heavens and a new earth that will be all that is good and right and true. The only leader who can make it happen is the one who came into the world and experienced its depravity first hand and then died to win it back to Himself.

Thank you Lord for doing what needed to be done. And thank you for not allowing the puny little plans of nations to rise to the place where they thought they had actually achieved their goal themselves.

Luke 1:5-7 – In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah, of the division of Abijah. And he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. [6] And they were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord. [7] But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were advanced in years.

The introduction of Zachariah, the future father of John the Baptist, is glowing. He and his wife are righteous, they walk blamelessly in God’s commandments and statutes. And the next word is “But”. They are righteous and walk blamelessly but that next word puts us on alert. There is a “but” in their lives. Even thought hey walk obediently there is something that is not right.

The “but” here tell us two things. Luke points out that they have no child because Elizabeth is barren and then he tells us that they are advanced in age. In other words, they cannot have a child. They have stopped praying for one. They have come to some sort of resolution in their lives about the plain facts: they are going to leave the world childless.

Children are a blessing from God. They are a reward from God. But we would not conclude rightly if we concluded that they are a reward for righteous living. Zechariah and Elizabeth walk righteously and have not been so rewarded. The belief that such a curse from God is due to sin was certainly alive and well in these days. John 9:1-2, Luke 13:1-5 show us that the belief that bad things happen to bad people was doing very well, thank you very much. Everyone knows that Zechariah is a good priest, a good husband, an example to the community of obedience to the Law. But they wonder what he has done or what Elizabeth has done to deserve this slap from God. Elizabeth and Zechariah may have wondered themselves.

But Luke is careful to tell us that this barrenness is nothing but the hand of God. He intentionally points out that whatever problems this couple have is not because of sin. What we know is that it is because of the plan of God. We see the same thing with Abraham and Sarah, Jacob and Rachel.

It rains on the just and the unjust. And in the rain that is falling on this couple the pain is because God is going to do something far greater for them than they could ever imagine. This is such a hard lesson for us to learn. Perhaps that is why we see it being repeated to us so much throughout the Scriptures. God works everything for our good. He does not just step in to a bad event and then fix it. He orchestrates the whole thing.

He will do for us in ways that are far better than we could ever think or imagine but He will do it when He knows the time is right and not a moment before. And He will do it in circumstances that we could not foresee.

The message here? Trust God. Hardship is not always a sign of sin. It may be a sign that God is doing something far greater than you could ever have imagined. Just because you are not able to envision how anything good can come out of a situation is hardly proof that it can’t happen.

A good dose of Job 38-42 would do us all some good. It is not an easy lesson to learn. It wasn’t for Zechariah. He learned it the hard way. But God was faithful and Zech has been rejoicing in that for a very long time now.