Just Some Thoughts on Some Psalms

 

Have you ever had a morning when this is all you wanted?

 

“O God, do not remain quiet; do not be silent and, O God do not be still” (Psa. 83:1).

 

Have you ever had times when you just wanted to feel His touch? To sense Him? To hear Him? To see Him? Is doesn’t seem too much to ask, does it? Just a soft sensation that He is with you, just a faint whisper, just a flicker of eternal light in the distance – are there times when this would be reassuringly enough?  

 

Pretty simple isn’t it? A basic desire. “O God, do not remain quiet; do not be silent and, O God do not be still.” It isn’t like we’re asking for the Red Sea to be parted, or to walk on water, or to have great-aunt Nellie come back from the dead after fifty years. We just want some communication. We just want to know there is Someone who takes the initiative and makes a call to us every now and then.

 

Well, anyway, this seems like a good prayer to me.

 

Then there is Psalm 88. Do you read Psalm 88? We really should read this Psalm, after all it is part of the Psalter and the Psalter is part of the Canon, and a rather significant part at that. I’m not sure that we’d miss Obadiah or Nahum if a thief absconded with them, but I’m pretty sure we’d miss the Psalter…or at least I hope we would. Why with Obadiah and Nahum most of us would say, “Nahum? Obadiah? I didn’t even know this furniture was in the house; how can I miss them?”

 

Job could have prayed Psalm 88. “…my soul has had enough troubles, and my life has drawn near to Sheol…Forsaken among the dead…I have become like a man without strength…You have put me in the lowest pit…O LORD why do You reject my soul? Why do You hide Your face from me?” This will put a smile on our faces, this is great, this will draw folks to church! You gotta love Psalm 88!

 

There is no resolution in Psalm 88. Have you ever ended a day, a week, a month, or maybe even a year with no resolution? I have more than one thing in my life that I’m not likely to see resolution on before I leave this earth. Since I am one of those people who drive for closure, often whether closure is smart or not, not having resolution is like having a toothache, or like a sock that keeps inching its way down into your shoe – it can be painful or just irritating, but you know it’s there whether you think about it or not.

 

Psalm 118 calls me home to Jesus, the Stone which the builders rejected. Many of us have sung, “This is the day which the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it” (Psa. 118:24). However, we typically sing this verse in ignorance of its context, for its context is, “The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief corner stone. This is the LORD’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day which the LORD has made…” In other words, the context is the crucifixion of Jesus Christ – the rejection and crucifixion of Jesus Christ is the Day the LORD has made.

 

When I read verse 20, “This is the gate of the LORD; the righteous will enter through it,” I think of the Cross of Jesus Christ. What other gate is there that we must enter, other than the Christ of the Cross and the Cross of Christ?

 

Psalm 88 finds its resolution in Psalm 118. Life finds its resolution in the Cross of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ was victorious through suffering and death, and our Psalm 88 experiences will lead us to Easter morning as we live in Christ and the koinonia of His sufferings.

 

When I cry out to God to speak, to not be quiet, to “just do something!," I can look to Psalm 118 and see that the Father has indeed spoken, that He has indeed done something…He has sent His Only Begotten Son, and He has given Jesus Christ to me and He has given me to Jesus Christ.

Overcoming – Four Principles in Revelation 12 (Part 13)

  

“And they overcame him because the blood of the Lamb, and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even unto death.” Revelation 12:11.

 

To conclude our consideration of the above verse, we’ve considered four principles of overcoming the enemy in Revelation Chapter 12; the blood of the Lamb, the word of our testimony, not loving our lives even unto death, and living with Christ in the heavens rather than as earth dwellers.

 

Jesus Christ calls us to participate in His resurrection, in His very own victory. Jesus says, “These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). Speaking of the spirit of antichrist, the Apostle John writes, “You are from God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world” (1 John 4:4).

 

Note than when we are in Christ that we “are from God.” We have not always been from God, but in Christ we are now from God. It is because we are from God that Jesus Christ is not ashamed to call us “brethren” (Hebrews 2:11). O dear friends, please do not be shackled and imprisoned in a false identity, for our true and eternal identity is in Jesus Christ and it is only in Him that we overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil. Please do not define yourself by your experience, no matter where on the spectrum your experience might be; Jesus Christ must be our only source of definition and His Word must rule our hearts and minds and fill our souls.

 

God is glorified when we bear fruit (John 15:8), not when we insist that we are worthless trees. God is glorified when we behold Jesus Christ and focus on Him, not when we make ourselves the storyline, the center of attention – whether this be self-exaltation or self-abnegation, or anywhere in between.

 

The Christ of the Cross and the Cross of Christ is our way of life, and in this Way we know and experience Jesus Christ as our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, and glory in the Lord and in the Lord alone (1 Cor. 1:30 – 31).

 

For the man or woman who has taken up the Cross and is following Jesus (Mark 8:34ff), the book of Revelation is a message of hope, faith, love, comfort, and overcoming. It is a book that describes what it is to be a son or daughter of the Living God – to be among those who are faithful to the Lamb no matter what may come to pass. It is a letter that teaches us what it means to be victorious in Christ in the face of unspeakable evil; to be faithful to Christ in a world gone crazy.

 

Let me quote from the first meditation in this series:

 

“…the book of Revelation is a discipleship manual, not a crystal ball. John is not a kind of first-century Nostradamus. It is sad to see how this powerfully hope-giving book is turned into predictor-of-the-next-horrible-thing-that-will-happen-in-the-world. The British journalist G.K. Chesterton once quipped that “though St. John the Evangelist saw many strange monsters in his vision, he saw no creature so wild as one of his own commentators.”” Discipleship on the Edge, Darrell W. Johnson, Regent College Publishing, 2004, page 380.

 

Regarding the two-fold purpose of Revelation Johnson writes, “It seeks to set the present moment in all its brokenness, violence, uncertainty in light of the unseen realities of the future…But more importantly it seeks to set the present moment in light of the unseen realities of the present. The fundamental conviction of apocalyptic is “things are not as they seem.” There is more to reality that we can know with our unaided senses and intellect and emotions. The great purpose – the pastoral purpose – of Revelation is to open up that more and see Jesus in the midst of it all.” Johnson, page 381.

 

Christ calls us to live in the words of Isaiah the prophet (Isaiah 60:1 – 2), “Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you. For behold, darkness will cover the earth and deep darkness the peoples; but the LORD will rise upon you and His glory will appear upon you.” Christ is our light, Christ is our glory, Christ rises upon us and within us.

 

O dear friends, we live in a land of deep darkness, darkness that masquerades as light to many, even to professing Christians (2 Cor. 11:13 – 15; Isaiah 5:20). Your Father has not called you to escape, but to be a source of light and life to those around you (Isaiah 32:1 – 2; Matthew 28:18 – 20). Live for what is real and eternal, not for what is passing away, no matter how attractive it might be (2 Cor. 4:16 – 18; 5:7; Matt. 6:19 – 24; John 6:27).

 

Everyday people are making decisions, decisions whether to accept the mark of the beast, or whether to follow the Lamb (Rev. chapters 13 and 14). We can live with the beast on the earth as earth dwellers, or we can live with the Lamb on Mount Zion. We can live as those who are overcome by the world around us, or we can live as those who are overcoming by the blood of the Lamb, the Word of our Testimony, and by not loving ourselves but laying down our lives for Jesus Christ and a lost and dying world.

 

What is our decision today? What is my decision?

 

What is your decision?

Overcoming – Four Principles in Revelation 12 (Part 12)

  

“And they overcame him because the blood of the Lamb, and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even unto death.” Revelation 12:11.

 

Before we conclude our consideration of the blood of the Lamb, there is one other aspect of the blood of Christ that we ought to ponder, and it is the most important facet of this great mystery; this is God’s complete and total satisfaction with the blood of the Lamb which causes Him to pass over us in judgement and accept us fully and unconditionally as His sons and daughters.

 

Here is a great principle for the follower of Jesus Christ, “I can believe what I think about myself, I can believe what the world thinks about me, I can believe what Satan says about me (remember, he is the “accuser of the brethren”), or I can believe what God thinks about me.”

 

Only one of the above four is reliable and trustworthy, and that is God. People do not need better self-esteem, they need to know God in Jesus Christ, for when Jesus Christ is the ground of our being, the ground of our identity, we will find true and lasting holistic security. When our eyes are on ourselves we have confusion, when they are on Jesus Christ we have security and purpose.

 

In 1 Corinthians 5:7 Paul calls Christ “our Passover” who has been sacrificed. This is a reference to the first Passover in Egypt in Exodus Chapter 12, which is termed “Yahweh’s Passover” (Ex. 12:11). Along with eating the unblemished lamb, each Israelite household was to apply the blood of the lamb to the two doorposts and the lintel of their houses (Ex. 12:22) and to stay within their houses until morning.

 

“For Yahweh will pass through [the land] to smite the Egyptians; and when He sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, Yahweh will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to come into your houses to smite you” (Ex. 12:23).

 

The blood of the Lamb not only speaks to us of deliverance from God’s righteous judgment, but it also speaks to us of our deliverance from the world; for the judgment on Egypt was not only to punish Pharoah and his people for their sins, especially their sin of not releasing the People of God; it was also to effect the deliverance of the People of God so that they might worship the True and Living God and come into the inheritance that He had prepared from them.

 

While the world around us is being judged for its rejection of God, we are safe in Jesus Christ because of His blood – God the Father sees the blood of His Son, the Lamb of God, and judgment passes over us. This is a confidence we can live in, no matter our circumstances (Romans 8:26 – 39).

 

The second dimension of the Father’s complete and total satisfaction with the blood of the Lamb is grounded in the Day of Atonement (Leviticus Chapter 16). This is that Great Day, on the tenth day of the seventh month (Lev. 16:29), when the High Priest entered the Holy of Holies to make atonement before God for the sins of the people. This image is treated extensively in Hebrews chapters 7 – 10, in which we see that the earthly Day of Atonement was a shadow and reflection of the Heavenly Day of Atonement, in which our Great High Priest, Jesus Christ, offered Himself as both Priest and Sacrifice.

 

(I must stop and say that this is another example of why we must learn the Scriptures, for only by knowing the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Writings can we come close to understanding and experiencing the depth of the New Testament, especially when we come to books such as Hebrews and Revelation).

 

I love the book of Hebrews with its glorious presentation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, a salvation that purges our consciences of sin (Heb. 9:14; 10:22) and that moves us from a religion of sin-management into the fulness of our sonship in Jesus Christ. A Gospel that invites us, as the People of God, to live in the Holy of Holies – knowing that the veil has been rent asunder in Jesus Christ (Heb. 10:19 – 25)!

 

But, for our present purposes there is only one point I want to make regarding the blood of the Lamb on the Heavenly Day of Atonement, and that is that the blood was offered by the Son to the Father beyond the veil. Yes, the crucifixion of Jesus Christ was on display for the world to see, and yet that is not entirely true, for we know that darkness covered the land for three hours. Now this is a mystery, some things we “see” and some things we don’t see; and we can see much and yet not see much. There is a heavenly Tabernacle that required cleansing (Hebrews 9:8 – 23), and in some fashion we are that heavenly Tabernacle (Heb. 10:23) for what requires cleansing except that which has sinned, and who has sinned but Adam’s race, and who did Christ die for but Adam’s race.

 

And yet, the High Priest goes beyond the veil to offer His blood on the Mercy Seat to the Father, and in this sense the offering of the blood is first and foremost a transaction between the Father and the Son – it is beyond us, above us, and yet it touches us – for we are sprinkled with the blood of the Lamb. (I encourage you to spend a few months in Hebrews if you want to drink in this atmosphere – note that I write “months” and not hours, or days, or weeks – it will usually take months to cleanse our deficient thinking and perceptions).

 

This brings me back to the great principle for the follower of Jesus Christ, “I can believe what I think about myself, I can believe what the world thinks about me, I can believe what Satan says about me (remember, he is the “accuser of the brethren”), or I can believe what God thinks about me.”

 

You see, dear friends, what I think or what I feel at any given moment doesn’t really matter, it is what God thinks, it is what God says, that matters. Whether or not I “feel” that my sins are forgiven as the enemy attacks me with doubt doesn’t matter, what the world says about me and my worth doesn’t really matter, and most particularly what I think about my sins being forgiven doesn’t matter – not first and foremost – it must always be what God says that matters – for at the end of life what God declares is that which is and which shall always be. 

The blood of the Lamb was offered to God beyond the veil, in a transaction that we could not, and cannot, witness; and the Father’s declaration that the blood is all – sufficient, and the Son’s declaration that “It is finished,” is what we may confidently trust in and live in; by this knowledge that the blood of the Lamb is all – sufficient we may overcome the enemy.

 

Now obviously in another sense it does matter what we think and feel, in that if we will accept and confess the testimony of God about the blood of the Lamb we will learn to live as overcomers, live in the fulness of Jesus Christ, and be a blessing to others. But the ground of our thinking and feeling and identity must always be God in Christ (2 Cor. 5:16 – 21).

 

“He [God] made Him [Jesus Christ] who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of go din Him.” 2 Cor. 5:21.

 

“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.” Romans 5:8 – 10.

 

 

 

What We Can Do

 

This being the tenth of the month, I’ve been meditating in Proverbs Chapter Ten this morning. When I read the first verse, I wonder about myself, my life:

 

“The proverbs of Solomon. A wise son makes a father glad, but a foolish son is a grief to his mother.” Which son am I? Am I making my heavenly Father glad, or am I bringing grief to “the Jerusalem which is above, which is free, which is our mother” (Gal. 4:26)?

 

Then I come to verse five, “He who gathers in summer is a son who acts wisely, but he who sleeps in harvest is a son who acts shamefully.” (See also John 4:31 – 38; Matthew 9:36 – 38). What kind of son am I? What kind of people are we? It does seem as if we’ve abandoned our mission (Matthew 28:19 – 20). Can’t we see that there is something systemically wrong with us if sharing the Gospel is not our collective way of life? We deny our nature in Christ when we do not share the Gospel. Can we not see this? Our nature in Christ is to soar like eagles, rather than live off the ground like turkeys – yet we have been taught to live and think like turkeys (and the world eats us for dinner).

 

Well, let’s think about today, how can we live today? What can we do today? The problems of the world are so big, and we are so small. The vitriol of the world is so toxic, its poison so pronounced, its values so wicked, what can I do? What can you do? What can we do?

 

“The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life…the lips of the righteous feed many” (vv. 11 & 21). What we can do is to speak words of truth, hope, and life in Christ to others (and challenge as well!). What we can do is speak as the daughters and sons of the Living God. No matter how many people you meet today, you will not meet one person who does not need to be fed the Word of Truth in its myriad forms. Will I do what I can do today? Will you do what you can do today?

 

These verses have Christological implications (indeed, we can see Christ throughout the book of Proverbs), for truly Jesus Christ is the Righteous whose mouth is a fountain of life and whose lips feed many. Since in Him we have been made righteous (2 Corinthians 5:16 – 21), and since we are His Body (1 Corinthians 12:12), then as Augustine says, “As is the Head, so is the Body.”

 

We, you and I, are the mouth of Christ. We are the lips of Christ. We are the presence of Christ to those around us, and what we can do is to live as who we are in Christ, as eagles; and not as who we aren’t, as turkeys.

 

In Christ our mouth can be refreshing living Water for others, in Christ our lips can feed many with the Bread of Life – and we can do this today.

 

Will we? Will I? Will you?

 

There really is a lot we can do.

 

 

Overcoming – Four Principles in Revelation 12 (Part 11)

  

“And they overcame him because the blood of the Lamb, and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even unto death.” Revelation 12:11.

 

As we saw in our last post in this series, the blood of the Lamb redeems us, we have been bought with a price and we are not our own. The blood of the Lamb also cleanses us from our sins and is the basis for God forgiving us for our sins. Therefore, the blood of Jesus Christ redeems us, cleanses us, and is the ground of God’s forgiveness for our sins. This, in turn, is our foundation in Christ, for overcoming the world, the flesh, and the devil.

 

My soul is soiled, my conscience is polluted, my relationship with God is shattered, I am living in death – I can do nothing to help myself and restore my relationship with God; in His great love, God in Christ reconciles me to Himself, “not counting my trespasses against me,” and making Christ, “who knew no sin to be sin on my behalf, so that I might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor. 5:16 – 21).

 

“In Him [Christ] we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace” (Eph. 1:7). “…in whom [Christ] we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Col. 1:14). (See also Romans 3:21 – 5:11!).

 

What does all of this have to do with overcoming Satan? Note that in Revelation 12:9 that the enemy is styled as “deceiving the whole world,” and also note that in 12:10 he is called “the accuser of our brethren.” Satan wants to deceive us about God, he wants to deceive us about others, and he wants to deceive us about ourselves. In other words, the enemy does not want us to see things as they really are, he wants us to live in an opium den of semi-consciousness, of shadows and shades.

 

We live in perhaps the most self-centered and self-preoccupied society in history. Yes, I realize that in our fallen state that we’ve always been self-absorbed black holes, but consider how preoccupied we are with ourselves, with our emotional and psychological and physical condition – our therapy has a thousand faces; whether we think of the aisles of self-medication, alcohol and drugs, self-help programs, therapeutic talk shows, physical fitness programs that become obsessive in their messaging, “experiences” such as vacations which we simply must have in order to survive, and sadly, so sadly, the content of much preaching and teaching which is all about us – and our wants, our needs, our desires, our pleasures – it is the entire package of life I’m writing about. Some of these things, in and of themselves can be good and healthy, but when we buy into a way of thinking and living that is all about ourselves then we have bought into the opium den of Satan.

 

What does the blood of the Lamb have to do with this? In one sense everything.

 

The blood of the Lamb speaks to me of the amazing and unfathomable love of God for me…yes, it is also for “us,” but if I don’t see it as for “me” personally then I will not know the security of His love. Also, if I do not see it as for “you” as well, then I will not see you as a person loved and valued by the True and Living God and as a person for whom Christ died. I love Paul’s words, “…who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Gal. 2:20).

 

Once I see that the blood of the Lamb is for me and that God’s acceptance of me in Christ is complete, that my sins are forgiven in Christ, then I can forget about myself and live for Christ and others – then I am free from the fears and intimidation and manipulations of this world and the enemy, then I begin overcoming in Jesus Christ. My life changes when I am convinced of God’s love in Christ for me, I begin living in the new creation of 2 Corinthians 5:17.

 

The letter of Revelation is written to followers of Jesus Christ in a hostile world. They are facing false teaching, economic pressure, social pressure, and outright persecution. God is not promising to take them out of the world, but to be with them in and through the world (John 15:18 – 16:4; 16:33; 17:15; Matthew 28:20; Hebrews 13:5 – 6).

 

The enemy will try again and again to get me to doubt God’s love for me in Jesus Christ, He will try to get me to live in guilt for my sins, not believing that God has truly forgiven me – remember, the enemy is “the accuser of the brethren.” If I am living in guilt then I am living in insecurity, and if I am living in insecurity then I am living in fear, and if I am living in fear then I am playing games to protect myself – I am not living in the light and reality of Christ’s sacrificial and reconciling blood.

 

When Paul writes that we are “justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith…” (Romans 3:25 – 26a), he is saying that when we are justified in Christ that not only are our sins forgiven, but that we are “justified.” That word “justified” not only means that our sins are forgiven, and it not only means that when God looks at us, in Christ, that He sees us as if we have never sinned, but it also means that when God looks at us that He sees us as if we have always kept His Law, as if we’ve always been obedient to Him.

 

(When I write “as if” I think there must be better words, I think there must be a better and higher concept and way of putting this, because “as if” can convey the idea of a fiction, and this is anything but a fiction. I just don’t know another way to express this in my limited understanding. What Paul is writing about is as real as real can be.)

 

I love Paul’s words, “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction [or entrance] by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God” (Romans 5:1 – 2).

 

When we have “peace with God” we can live in the midst of uncertainty and pressure and tribulation. In this sense Romans 5:1 – 2 has everything to do the Revelation as a whole, and with Revelation 12:11 in particular. How do I know this? See what follows Romans 5:1 – 2:

 

“And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us” (Romans 5:3 – 5).

 

O dear friends, God has not called us to live in guilt or insecurity. He has not called us to cave into the fears and pressures of this world. Our heavenly Father sent His Only Begotten Son to live and die and rise from the dead for us; for you, for me, for us. His blood was shed to reconcile us to God, to redeem us from this present evil age, so that we might live as we were created to live, in intimate relationship with God; in and through Jesus Christ.