Psalm 27

The worshiper of the Almighty looks for light in the darkest night and rejoices in the God of heaven. Though he must walk here below for a time, his affections are drawn above, and he knows that his citizenship is there where he longs to take his place in the house of the Lord in the land of the living.

God is his light, but He also is his salvation. In this mortal life he faces both darkness and danger. If he were to forget about the Lord and about heaven, every enemy might seem overwhelming. As he remembers what God has already done for him and what the Lord has promised to do in the future, he knows that he need not be afraid of anything.

God is his present stronghold. There are difficulties in his life. He has heard the Word that assures him that in this world he will have tribulation, but He has also heard the truth that the God who made the heavens and the earth has overcome the world. This is not to say that his difficulties are insignificant or inconsequential. Far from it! His enemies are like a tribe of cannibals. They are seeking his life, but because of the power of God, they are the ones who will ultimately stumble and fall.

Even if he had to be a solo warrior against an entire army, even if a nation should declare war against him alone, that will not change his confidence. His assessment of his prospects is not based on his own relative strength when compared with that of those who oppose him, but on the pleasure of God, who is on his side.

Where does this disposition of heavenly assurance come from? How can he have such peace in the midst of dangers that cripple others? It has to do with his deepest desires. If a man's most profound desires are for the temporary comforts of his present mortal existence, for his current prosperity, and for the well-being of those he loves, he can easily be held hostage by an enemy that can attempt to take these away through murder or theft. Just the possibility of violence against him and his family could ruin his confidence. But what if he has truly set his affections above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of the Father? What if He longs for the house of God in the heavens, beyond the reach of ruthless murderers and thieves? If God is fighting for such a man, who can defeat him? He is a free man, even if he is slave who has been bought and sold by oppressors. No one can separate him from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The Lord will protect him in heaven and He will keep him on earth with that measure of prosperity and comfort that He has ordained for him during his brief time here below. He can thank God freely and enjoy every good gift that he receives each day. He can seek the peace of those all around him, and take advantage of today's opportunities for love and good deeds. No one can steal away his peace. God is his Protector now and forever.

This godliness in the desires of his heart allows this man to take delight in the Lord as He worships God. He will sing and make melody to the Lord, and live a life of faith and obedience regardless of his trials.

This does not mean that he has no need to cast his cares upon the Lord. He does not deny the pain of loss or ignore important opportunities for good that must not be squandered. He is engaged in the world where he lives, and receives every day of life as a gift to be used well. Because of this, he calls out to God with sincere prayer. He seeks God's face with heartfelt desire.

He does not take his communion with God for granted, but makes strong requests to the Lord, not only for God's specific aid in situations of trouble and opportunity, but more generally for the Lord's continuous presence in His life. If God turns away from him, he knows that he will not succeed. He knows that he needs God more than the comfort and support of his parents.

Every day of his life, the godly man needs to hear the voice of the Almighty speaking to him in His Word. He comes to that Word expecting to be taught. He knows that God disciplines those He loves, and he is eager to hear, to learn, and to obey. His struggles with his enemies are opportunities for careful listening to the Lord's words. If his life were easier would he be as desperate for God as he needs to be? But with men who breathe out violence against him who are so near, he has little margin for spiritual laziness. He must pay attention to the God who loves him, the God in whom his soul rejoices.

He watches, he waits, he listens, he considers, and he obeys. As he pays close attention to the Lord's Word, his own life in strengthened in the covenant faithfulness of God. He knows that he shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. This is a statement of faith. He intends to dwell in a realm of light and life forever. Earth is fading away, but Christ has secured for us a very reliable salvation.

We can wait for the Lord even today. We can be strong in Him. We need not allow our joy and courage to be stolen away from us by our enemies and by the painful and unhappy events that are part of the will of God for us at this moment.

Do you feel like you have been robbed of all joy? You can take your courage back. You can be of good cheer, for Christ has overcome the world. We are waiting for the One who died for us and rose again, the One who is with us now, the One to whom we speak in prayer, who is the One who speaks to us in His life-giving Word.

Hebrews 9

God gave the Israelites rules for Old Covenant worship through Moses. To those who have been schooled in the simplicity of the New Covenant, the life of tabernacle and later temple worship is very foreign. Yet for Old Testament worshipers who understood what it was to have a Holy Place and a separate section within the temple called the Holy of Holies, this was all normal, imprinted upon their souls from the youngest ages.

As we consider these matters in our day, we need to have diagrams and an artist's rendition to understand the physical properties and locations of the lampstand, the table for the bread of the presence, the curtain, the golden altar of incense, the ark of the covenant, and the mercy seat above the ark. The Jews knew about these objects, even if they never were able to see them. If they came to Jerusalem for the annual festivals, they could not help but see the impressive building that towered above the city, and they were taught by their elders about the rituals of the Law, and the holy objects and spaces connected with them. Yet they did not understand the meaning that God stored up for us all in the religious patterns that were to be a part of the normal rhythm of Jewish life.

When they heard the word “priests,” they had immediate mental images that flooded their minds from experience. Those men, who were dressed so distinctively, were the ones who had access to special places in the temple where other people could not go. They performed certain ritual duties that only they were allowed to do. In particular, only the high priest was allowed to go behind the curtain into the Holy of Holies, and only on the Day of Atonement once per year with the blood that was commanded according to Leviticus 16. But what was all this about? They knew that the high priest offered sacrifices for his own sins and for the unintentional sins of the people. But why was access to the presence of God in worship subject to such severe restrictions?

Now that the final Sacrifice has come in our great High Priest Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit has revealed to us the meaning of these rules. God established this system exclusively for the time of the Law, which was a time of preparation. It was the Lord's intention to eventually bring down the curtain that separated us from His presence. While that old system of worship was still in place, it told worshipers that a safe way into the Lord's presence had not yet come in the person of the Messiah. These old ways speak to us with even greater clarity now about the division between heaven and earth, and about a day beyond the gospel era, when we will see the full reunion of all things in Christ.

Peace with God and resurrection life could never have come to us through the right set of rituals, whether old or new. We need the reality behind the rules. That reality is Christ, who has now appeared as a High Priest of the good things that have come. The resurrection age has begun. The new temple is His body. His physical body was pierced for us and our atonement was secured through His blood. When He ascended again into heaven, he brought the blood of a better sacrifice into the presence of God for us, securing our eternal redemption.

The old way of ceremonial purification according to Leviticus had its good purpose for the time of preparation. Now the reality has come to us in Christ, and we cannot return to a system that has had its day, but has now come and gone. We want more than a story of redemption communicated in the mystery of symbols. We want redemption itself through the Son of God and the gift of the Spirit.

Christ is the only sacrifice that is truly without blemish. He offered Himself to God through the eternal Spirit, and through that same eternal Spirit, the benefits of His life and death touch our lives today as we worship God through Him. Our consciences have been purified from the dead works by which so many Jews and Gentiles once tried to obtain peace with God. Through the blood of Christ we have been set free to serve the living God.

The time has come that was foretold so long ago in God's promise to Abraham. The death of Christ has brought the Old Covenant to an end. Now is the time to walk together in the inheritance that is ours in Christ, the one Mediator between God and man.

Blood is all about life and death. God has created an amazing system of circulation whereby necessary oxygen and nutrition flows to every part of the body. While the heart is pumping and the arteries and veins are doing what they were designed to do, we have life. When there is a great loss of blood, or the body is damaged by some injury or disease that is so severe that this system of healthy mortal life can no longer function, we face death. Blood is a matter of life and death.

When the Son of God shed His blood and when Jesus ascended into heaven, God made a way for us to have bold access to Him. Jesus did not enter the temple in Jerusalem to make peace with God for us. He ascended into the heavenly temple. Now we look for a life where the glories of heaven will be our daily experience, and the former ways of our access to God, old and new, will only be a fading memory.

Christ, in His singular sacrifice, has done what the Old Testament priests could never do through all their annual rituals. Because of the power of His blood, we can die in peace, and can face the judgment of God safely in the perfect Lamb of God. He has borne the sins of many, and will come again to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.

Psalm 26

We should thank the Lord for every blessing. Did you wake up with a good outlook on the day ahead of you? Is there food for breakfast? Do you have a safe place to lay your head? Is the sun shining? Do you have enough health that you can enjoy the fresh air and some light exercise? Is your family nearby? Will you be able to worship God in freedom today? Thank God!

Yet understand that not everyone can say yes to those questions. Can a man who is in turmoil and under assault also bless the Lord?

It is possible to ignore God when we have much and to ignore Him when we seem to have almost nothing. It also possible to acknowledge God in all circumstances. The man who turns to the Almighty every day has plenty to talk to God about when he is in desperate need.

What is his spiritual condition? Is he a man of integrity? Has he heard the Word of God and followed without wavering? Who can say yes without some qualification?

When the Son of God came to save us, he entered upon a mission where he would face increasing suffering as He moved closer and closer to the cross. Yet even in His earliest days, there was a king who wanted to take his life, and that king was willing to massacre all the little boys in Bethlehem and the surrounding region just to make sure that this one Child was stopped. When this Child grew, He was able to cry out to God without qualification, “Vindicate me, O Lord, for I have walked in my integrity, and I have trusted in the Lord without wavering.”

This Jesus represents us in His life and death. We turn to God for the mercy that comes to us through our holy Substitute. We come humbly asking that the Lord forgive our sins, and that He remember the righteousness of Christ and the blood that was shed for our salvation. We ask for daily strength to follow the Word that we know to be right. But Jesus is able to say, “Prove me, O Lord, and try me; test my heart and my mind. For your steadfast love is before my eyes, and I walk in your faithfulness.”

Our first word concerning heavenly righteousness has to be “Jesus.” God has provided a spotless Lamb to offer up in our place. There is a second word for those who would claim to be covered by the blood of Christ. When we hear the precepts of the Lord, the second word is “Yes.”

God says that we should not enter into evil with men of falsehood, and with hypocrites. We say, “Yes, Lord.” God says that we should stay out of the assembly of evildoers. We respond, “I hear your voice, O Lord, and I will obey. I will not sit with the wicked and turn away from you”

The first word of righteousness, “Jesus,” is our justification. We call upon the Name of the Lord, and we are declared righteous based on the perfect Man. Our hope of heaven is secured by the obedience of another. The second word, “Yes,” is our growth in the life of faith, our sanctification. Even this second word, “Yes,” comes from heaven as a gift to us based on the merits of Christ, but it is progressively experienced by us, rather than instantaneously declared about us and applied to our account. This second word, “Yes,” this sanctification, is happening in us and is expressed through us. It is something that God does, and because He is at work, then we are at work both to will and to do according to His good pleasure.

This word of following the Lord is what makes a Job to be the most righteous man in his generation. It is what made Mary, the mother of the Lord, such an unusual woman, and what defined Simeon, the old man who met her in the temple, who knew He could leave this earth in peace because He had seen the Christ according to the promise of God. This work of following admits of variation among those who are named by the perfect word of righteousness, “Jesus.” Not all who call upon the Name of the Lord are equally sanctified. We thank God that He has mercy on the weak, and that He will not break a bruised reed. But we also seek Him for growth in our own faithfulness and holiness.

If we are looking for truly perfect holiness, there is only one Source. Jesus was completely innocent. He worshiped His Father perfectly, and gave the quiet testimony of sincere faith and love, even though he did not always have a safe place to lay His head.

Because of His unique righteousness, in His death and resurrection He became the only safe place for us to dwell as we put our trust in Him. He is the cornerstone in a new house of God. His Word confirmed to us by apostles and prophets is the foundation of that house in which we have become living stones.

Just as righteous Simeon loved the temple in Jerusalem and loved the appearing of the Messiah, we love the heavenly church that our King is gathering here on earth, and we look for the glory of the fullness of body of Christ at our Lord's return.

Jesus suffered death for us, but His Father did not sweep His soul away with sinners. There was no evil in Him. There was much evil in us, but now His death has brought us life with Him, our living Head, and has granted to us a new power to turn away from evil.

Christ has walked perfectly in His own integrity. It is our privilege to follow Him. He has provided the level ground upon which we stand. Whether we have a lot or very little of the good things that God is pleased to distribute throughout the earth today, if we have Jesus, the first Word of righteousness, we are truly blessed, for we will bless that Lord in His glorious assembly forever.

Psalm 25

Is there no place for the righteous man to turn in a world of trouble? He lifts up all that he is, his life, his soul, to the one God who created and sustains the heavens and the earth. He rests his weary being on the one Rock that will not move. He trusts in God.

Trusting in the Lord does not immediately take away all his problems. There are still enemies, seen and unseen, at the gate of his life. They would love to embarrass him. They want to see him abandon his post in disgrace. They would be happy to celebrate his demise. Therefore this worshiper turns again to the Sovereign Lord of all. He waits for God, who alone can sustain him.

There are enemies of God and the gospel who are consumed with spreading a net for the church. When the Lord came to save, His enemies were especially within the ranks of the covenant community. There were leaders who were supposed to be representatives of all that is godly, but they rejected the true King of righteousness. Paul reminds the Ephesian church that we do not struggle against flesh and blood, but against spiritual entities that make use of people who will not follow in the way of humble love. But the worst enemies that we face can be those within our own hearts as we entertain unbelief and pursue a course of faithlessness.

Only God can rescue the worshiper from such formidable dangers. He does this by teaching him his ways. Just as his enemies are not merely external, but also internal, the teaching that sanctifies and preserves him must touch his soul and renew his mind. Whether he battles against fallen men and angels, evil societal structures, or his own flesh, the ultimate enemy is a spirit of death, and the resuscitation that he requires comes from the Spirit of life.

God's way is the way of life, and the worshiper needs to follow that way and to be kept on that way by the teaching of the truth. The Lord gives his servant a desire for truth. He waits for God expectantly, and the Lord comes to him in the Word. This Word is a powerful witness of the God of salvation.

In that Word, he finds again the mercy of God. He hears about the covenant faithfulness of the Lord, and remembers that God is very stable and reliable. There is an accuser of the brethren who is eager to disqualify a troubled conscience. But it is through this teaching of the steadfast love of the Lord that the godly man becomes convinced that his sins are forgiven. He remembers that he was not accepted by God because of his own merit, but for the sake of God's infinite goodness. What accusation can be brought against God's beloved servant when his righteousness is the righteousness of the Son of God credited to him?

There is certainly nothing lacking in the goodness of the Lord. The Lord will not abandon the man he loves. Has a sinner repented and believed in the provision of God for salvation? Has he embraced the promise that will never fail? Then he can eagerly rejoice in the Lord's merciful instruction that shows a man how he can be a true follower of the Almighty. The proud man insists on his own way. But the humble man rejoices in the way of the Lord. Everything about God's way is overflowing with steadfast love and faithfulness. This is the good path for the man who has set his heart on God in the daily surrender of faith.

The Lord will be true to His own Name. His mercy to his servant is bound up in His faithfulness to Himself. Here is an inexhaustible well of forgiveness for the worshiper who knows his own great guilt. He fears the Lord as the only true and mighty God, and He hears the instruction of the Lord, His love and His good precepts. Though a man's heart may be broken, the Lord's instruction is able to bring healing. Well-being will return to the soul of the man who has ears to hear. Even his offspring shall inherit the earth.

Such a man has a very precious possession, the friendship of God. He can and will pluck his feet out of any enemy's net. He turns again to the One who calls him friend. He speaks forthrightly about his heart. He feels as if he is alone. He is in pain. It seems like it is all too much to bear. He is distressed. Enemies seem to be everywhere. He asks God to see all this, and to consider.

Can the God who sent His Son to die for our sins, deliver us from all our troubles? Our salvation must be bigger than a legal declaration of forgiveness from God. It must include God's daily deliverance from trouble, until that day when we experience the fullness of His presence in the land of the living. We must be kept today in a world where death still molests, and where the enemies of God and His church still trouble us. We must be delivered from the enemy within, or we will lie down in doubt, fear, hatred, distraction, and unbelief. God must guard us and keep us again today. That will be the only way we will pursue true integrity when doing what is right is very costly.

Christ has secured for us a full salvation. He followed a road that necessitated the giving of His life. His death for us was powerful. God has delivered us from eternal destruction. He will hear us today when we call to Him. He will surely rescue His church from all her troubles.

Psalm 24

In the beginning God made the heavens and the earth. He is Lord over all. But something happened to the earth. Through one man, Adam, sin entered the created realm, and with sin came the judgment of God. Before sin came, God and man were in close communion with each other, but now man can only approach God through a mediator, earth is a place of great spiritual warfare, and heaven seems too far away.

Yet God still asserts His ownership over the earth. He made the earth and everything that dwells here. He caused the dry land to appear, and filled the earth with a great variety of creatures. Especially, God made man in His own image, and His intentions for man and for the earth are eternal. Though both man and the world itself taste death, both are a part of the resurrection order that the Lord has decreed from of old.

The Lord has a plan for a renewed earth, reunited with heaven where God dwells. He announced that plan in the beginning after sin came into the world. His plan? The Seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent. Evil and the evil one would be defeated through One victorious Man. That new Man would make the way for God and His people to enjoy close communion again in a place without sin.

But who would that Man be who could accomplish such a glorious victory? Who would be the One who would be worthy to ascend the hill of the Lord? Who would be permitted to stand in God's holy place? Even to enter the Holy of Holies of God's temple in Jerusalem... Who could do that? Only the High Priest, only once a year in connection with the rituals of the Day of Atonement, and only with the blood of the sacrifice. But who can enter the Lord's holy temple in heaven?

The victorious Seed of the Woman would have to have the moral requirements necessary to come into the presence of the Almighty. He had to be a man of clean hands and a pure heart. Any record of the slightest idolatry would disqualify Him from His appointed role. Even if an angel offered Him all the kingdoms of the world in exchange for one moment of false worship, this second Adam would have to resist. He would have to keep His promises completely, even if doing so would cost Him His life.

This is what was necessary for the Lord's blessing to be upon the Son of Man. Do you think that it is an easy thing to come before the presence of God in heaven? It is far beyond the reach of any man who has even one sin on His account. Yet God has made a way for us through the Seed of the Woman, the Second Adam.

Our worthy Substitute received blessing and righteousness from on high. Not for Himself; He did not need it. In recognition of His own perfect righteousness, He received the Spirit of righteousness to bestow upon those who would seek the Lord. He came as the perfect Man and the God of Jacob. All who call upon the Name of the Lamb of God are credited with the blessings required in order to ascend the holy hill of the Lord. What He has accomplished through His perfect merit, we have received through the fullness of His grace.

After Jesus died for our sins, He rose from the dead. This is a well-established fact based on the empty tomb and His resurrection appearances to many. Some who testified to the truth of that resurrection stood by their claims at the cost of their own lives. After forty days on the earth, this same resurrected Jesus ascended the holy hill of God on the glory cloud of the Lord's presence. His disciples saw this with their own eyes, at least as much as could be seen from this side of the present divide between heaven and earth.

On the other side of that divided were the gates of the heavenly temple. The one who could go through those gates would be the King of the Lord's resurrection kingdom. Jesus has entered heaven itself on our behalf. He did not come with the blood of bulls and goats. These could never have given any man entrance into the Lord's home above. He went through the gates of that perfect temple with His only precious blood.

Through His great victory, we have become living stones in a temple not made with human hands, the temple of the Holy Spirit. We now speak as those who desire the presence of the King of glory in our own lives forever. We desire that He would be in us now, and we long to be with Him forever.

All those who seek the God of Jacob must consider that the only way for us to ascend the holy hill of God is in this descendant of Eve, this Son of David, this King of the Jews, Jesus Christ. He has returned from the battle of the ages as our victorious Warrior. Through His moral perfection and willing sacrifice, the way to heaven has been purified for all who will repent and believe in Him. He is the Son of Man and the Son of God. He has become the King of glory. In Him God will unite all things, things in heaven, and things on earth.

Psalm 23

The man who is a true worshiper of the Lord God Almighty is not a man of radical independence. He finds His freedom in the bounds established for Him by a loving King. The Lord is His Shepherd.

This realization has a tremendous impact upon His state of mind. He knows that God is real, the the Lord has chosen to be closely connected to him, that he belongs to his heavenly King as surely as a shepherd owns his sheep, and that God is working all things for his good. Therefore, he knows that he lacks nothing.

Others can be overwhelmed by what they want. This man has a divine Shepherd. Even if he faces hunger, danger, and doubt for a time, He remembers that God has not abandoned him. He considers the Lord's sovereign provision and understands it to be bountiful.

God leads him in green pastures, places of useful service and generous provision. He is still alive on this earth because the Lord has provided him with everything necessary for life and godliness. He does not need to give in to worry. God will supply what may seem to be lacking.

His concern, as a man who knows where all these good gifts come from, is to continue to stay close to the Shepherd. He expects to hear the voice of the One who is everything to him. Like the Israelites traveling through the wilderness, if the Lord moves, then he moves. He is not a passive observer, but an active follower.

The Lord keeps this man's life intact. When following God seems to have wounded him, when his interactions with both friends and enemies have taken some toll upon his soul, his God is able to supply all his needs according to His riches in glory. Over and over again, the Lord restores his soul. Does he need sleep? The Lord gives rest to those He loves. Does he need courage for living? The love of the cross is an assurance to his soul. He knows the One who announced from the beginning that the Seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent. He remembers again the words that his Shepherd has spoken: “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”

In this world, even the best follower of the Almighty will face temptation. Sin is everywhere. Yet the worshiper's Shepherd is able to lead him in paths of righteousness by His mysterious providence and by His voice. He keeps us in the right way for His own Name's sake. What could be better than that! There is no greater assurance for the man who desires to follow the Lord than this. God will be true to His own Name, and He has determined that our successful pathway of sanctification is tied to the glory of that Name. It shall be accomplished. He who began a good work in the life of His sheep will be faithful to finish what He has started.

In this world the greatest man of God will still have tribulation. All who follow a King who died on a cross have been suitably warned that the sheep that would listen to this Good Shepherd should expect a cross as well. Death is all around any man who lives on the earth. Even the one who is traveling to the celestial city cannot be ignorant of the valley of the shadow of death.

Does such a man need to give up on the journey toward heaven? Does he need to be consumed by worry? No, “I will fear no evil.” Why? “You are with me.” The Lord's voice is in the ear of the man who is able to believe the Scriptures. He feels the discipline of God correcting him, and he has the Spirit of Christ leading him by that Word. He knows that he is not alone. He has the comfort of the heavenly Gift.

Even now, the godly man knows what it is to sit down at the table of the Lord and feast on good things from above. He listens to the Word, taking in treasures old and new. He partakes of the bread and the cup, and He remembers the death and resurrection of the Lord of glory. As he participates in that spiritual feast of Word and sacrament served to him by the Shepherd of the church, he proclaims the death of the King of glory until the Lamb of God comes again as the Lion of the tribe of Judah.

His enemies see the Lord's provision for the man of faith. What do they make of all of this? What can the one who will not hear and believe discern of the feast that God provides for those who have been captivated by His love? Yet we were once dead in our trespasses and sins in which we once walked, and we have been made alive to the voice of the One Shepherd of the sheep. God is still calling people. His sheep will hear His voice, the will know Him, and they will follow Him.

Jesus is the Good Shepherd. In love He laid down His life for the sheep. In the power of an indestructible soul He took up His life again. Now He anoints his people with the oil of heaven. He who is the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed One, full of the Holy Spirit forever, gives us Himself. Christ is in us. We have the hope of glory. Even in this world of death, that provision from the land of life has become a cup that overflows for us.

We will dwell in house of the Lord forever. The Shepherd who loves His sheep enough to die for them will take them to be with Him where He is, so that we can behold His glory. Until then, the steadfast love that the Father has for the Son is in us, and Jesus Himself is in us. The Lord is our Shepherd, now and forever.

Psalm 22

How low can a godly man go? He cries out to the Lord, owning Him as “my God,” and yet he asks Him, “Why have you forsaken me?” He shouts to the Lord in turmoil, but there is no answer.

He is clinging by faith to the God He knows, despite the fact that the comfort of communion with the Almighty is suddenly so far away from him. He meditates upon the God who lives in the praises of those who worship Him, the God who is holy. He considers the heritage of the Lord's mercy toward His people. He knows that when the faithful have turned to Him throughout the generations, time and again God has rescued them in their need.

He thinks then of His current condition. He has become the object of mockery and hatred for people who do not believe that God will help him. There is no word of comfort near him, only scorn and ridicule. The unmistakable taunt of a murderous mob is this: “God does not love you, and He will not rescue you.”

Yet this vicious crowd can never take away his past. This godly servant knows that the Lord has been with him as his God from the earliest moments of his life. He renews his plea: “Be not far from me, for trouble is near, and there is none to help.”

This trouble is from angry people who are filled with hate. They are wild beasts ready to kill. Have they lost all sense that they are actually men created in God's image, men who should have sympathy for those who suffer and basic respect for all who share in the dignity of being human beings?

They look upon this godly men who is publicly exposed before their eyes in the most desperate condition. With only moments left to live, his bones are dislocated, his heart is near collapse, and his lungs are struggling for breath. As he dies with the most extreme thirst and deprivation before the eyes of those who despise him, he is aware of this truth: It is God who has laid him in the dust of death.

This man is not dying from natural causes. He has been crucified. “They have pierced my hands and feet,” he says. The mob stares at him. They have divided his clothes, and now they gloat over his naked frame.

His plea to God is renewed once again. “Do not be far off! O you my help, come quickly to my aid! Deliver my soul from the sword, my precious life from the power of the dog! Save me from the mouth of the lion!”

Suddenly there is a complete and dramatic change: “You have rescued me.” God has heard and has answered the plea of His suffering servant. His vows have come before the throne of God, and the Lord has given him sudden and vigorous life. He will pay to the Lord the offering that He promised on the day when he called out in distress to the Almighty.

What is the payment of his vow? This one man has a connection to many others that he calls his worshiping “brothers” who are part of the Lord's congregation. This crucified man who now lives will gather all the true offspring of Jacob with the message of the Lord's covenant faithfulness to him. Together a great congregation will worship God because of this one dying man who now lives.

How great will this congregation be? They will be an eternal church, together with the one who died and lives again. Their hearts will live forever! They will reach far beyond the Jews. “All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall worship before” the God of Israel as their eternal King. Their number will include those who have already died and millions who have not yet been born. These future generations will hear a message that will draw them into this eternal community of worship. What will the message be? “He has done it!”

Jesus is the righteous suffering Servant who has become the King of the resurrection kingdom. Not only are the facts of this psalm unmistakably about the events surrounding His humiliation and exaltation, we know that this psalm is about Him from a better source than our own interpretation of words written 1000 years before His death. He has put His mark on this psalm with His own dying plea: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Jesus gave this testimony before Jews and Gentiles on the day when He died for our sins.

In His anguished cry of the opening words of this moving and perplexing composition, Jesus is giving a most important message to all who will hear. He speaks out of the anguish of His righteous soul. What is He actually saying by quoting the words of this wrenching prophesy?

Is it too much to put these words of explanation in His mouth? “Those who want to know what is happening to me, and what will come of my suffering, need to read the psalm that begins with these words. Then you will see what I went through as the Father turned His face away from His Righteous One. I gave My life for the congregation who would call upon My Name. Hear My meditation upon the goodness of the Almighty, and consider the mystery of evil that was all around Me. Take to heart the power of My death, and rejoice in the glory of My resurrection. Be a part of the congregation that is found in Me. I have conquered sin and death for you. I have done it!” Amen.

Psalm 21

In the law of Moses, God had given Israel provisions for a king that He would choose. Read Deuteronomy 17:14-20. The godly king was to lead Israel, but to follow God. He could not take the people someplace where God prohibited, or use them for his own glory. The way that he would be kept from from exalting himself above his brother Israelites and from turning away from the Lord, was through the Word of God. He had to write His own copy of the Law, read it all the days of his life, and learn from the Word to fear and obey God. Above any earthly king of Israel, God was forever King over His people.

The true king that God would choose would be a worshiper of the Lord who rejoiced in the strength of the Lord, and not in the numbers of the people, or their strategic military advantages. The power of Israel was in God alone. If God would not be salvation to Israel, no power within the grasp of the king could keep the people from danger. Positioned geographically between superior empires, Israel could only exist by the power of God.

The true king brings requests before God with heartfelt desire, and the Lord hears him and helps him from heaven. God would give this man the richest blessing, and place a gold crown on his head, not so that he could lord it over the other worshipers of the Almighty, but that he might be a servant of all.

This ultimate king would be given long life. Could it be that God would give a man “length of days forever and ever?” Yes, this one king would have glory beyond what the peoples of the earth can confer. Through the Word of God, the Lord would give to one man, glory, salvation, splendor, and majesty.

Only God could make a king like the king of Israel. Only the Lord has the power of eternal blessing forever. To have this perfect eternal king is to give blessing not only to him but to the kingdom over which he rules. The Lord has a storehouse of divine joy in His presence, and He is able to make a man glad to such a great extent that a multitude of subjects are able to have a share of heavenly joy in the man who represents them before the throne of the Almighty.

Good times can come upon any nation. The ruling authorities may even experience several generations of peace, prosperity, and power. They may presume that life has always been that way, and that the current glory of their nation will forever remain. History insists on a different lesson. Kingdoms of men will rise and fall, some very quickly, some over a period that may span centuries. But the Lord reigns forever. Only God can extend His steadfast love to a king in such a may that we could accurately say that he shall not be moved.

Death seems like the ultimate mover of men in this world. Who can resist it? Yet God is stronger than death. If His chosen king is to have an eternal kingdom, he must move beyond death to eternal life. Mortality must give way to the permanence of resurrection. This is the only way that a king could experience the eternal approval of God for himself and for his subjects. If God's supreme blessing comes through one man and then touches a whole nation, the people must also be brought by God beyond death into eternal life.

In this world every kingdom will face the danger of current and potential future enemies. One of the challenges of military strategy is having an accurate understanding of the position and strength of your foe. A hostile leader may successfully hide the location of his forces and use the element of surprise to great advantage. But no enemy can surprise God. If an enemy comes against his nation or his people, it must always be according to His permissive will. In the present age, he may use a foreign evil power for his own secret purposes, disciplining those He loves. But one day the power of all adversaries to harass the Lord's servants will be completely removed.

The Lord knows His enemies. They will not be able to hide from Him. A day will come when the true Anointed King will come in divine power in order to judge. He will come as the God-Man. He will remove from His kingdom every pretender and every secret enemy. He will bring perfect wrath upon those who hate Him and who abuse His beloved people.

The destruction that He will bring will not be temporary. The King's enemies will have no future generations upon the earth. His resurrection kingdom of fullest blessing will come down upon this world with perfect renewal from heavenly realms. Then all the people of the Lord will experience the fullness of divine protection living in the glorious eternal realm of the King of the Jews, the Christ, the Man, the Son of God.

This Anointed One has already been revealed for our salvation. He took upon Himself the wrath necessary for our forgiveness. He reigns now in the current world of resurrection above with all His children who have finished their race here below. At just the right time He will establish the fullness of His reign upon the earth forever.

In that day, the Lord, the King, will be exalted by His people without any remaining fear or doubt. The finally enemy, death, will be utterly destroyed. And the people of Jesus, the great King, will sing and praise the power of the Son of God with the fulness of everlasting joy.

Psalm 20

As the worshipers of God gather together, they lift up their requests to the Lord. Many of their petitions are for groups of people, but some are for specific individuals. When a loved one is in a place of obvious need, it is easy for a congregation to offer up heartfelt prayers to God on his behalf. But not all of our prayers for individuals are that specific. Some are based on the office that the person holds, and our recognition together that it is vital for the entire community of faith that the Lord help this one person who represents us.

These prayers for a person in an official capacity can easily become perfunctory, lacking the sincerity of feeling that should accompany our requests to the Lord. The worshipers of the Lord might pray for their king every day. Do they mean what they say? Are their words before God just a rote add-on: “And God, please bless the king...” But if the worshipers actually knew the king as an intimate relation or friend, if they were aware of his daily struggles, and his desperate need for God's continual help, that would surely change the experience of calling out to God on his behalf. If they could actually speak with the king and make their desires for him known, they might be filled with sincerity as they said, “May the Lord answer you in the day of trouble!”

In this world of danger, those with great responsibility are near trouble every day. But there are moments that are especially trying, times when it may seem as if all is lost. When a powerful enemy is advancing toward the city gates, it is a day of trouble. Then the godly king is particularly aware that he needs the Lord.

What a blessing to hear that His subjects understand this as well, and are praying for him as if he were a member of their family or a very close friend. From the assembly of those who call upon the Name of the Lord, God will send help. From his sanctuary in heaven he will gives all necessary support according to His decrees.

But why should God care about the prayers of any man? Repentant sinners must approach the Lord through sacrifice. If we expect God to hear us, His requirements for justice must be satisfied. Even the king must bring an offering to the Lord. He must remember that he is a man, and that God is his Ruler. Through the blood of the sin offering his guilt is removed, and through his whole burnt offering his pledge of complete consecration ascends to the Lord's throne on high.

Even a very godly king will not always be right. There are times when it is best that the Lord not bring about the plans of a man, even if he is an exceptionally great leader. But it would be be wonderful to hear that God would grant all of the king's request if the people knew for certain that their ruler was perfectly wise and loving.

If the people of God were to somehow have a perfect king, they could ask God for nothing better than that Lord would not only preserve such a man through the worst day of trouble, but also that the Lord would grant to him everything that he might request. How happy would a nation be if they had such a ruler. Yet in this world, death would always be lurking around the corner. If only we could have a perfect king who would live and reign forever. The Lord's assurance that such a man's every request would be fully granted would be a source of perfect joy to us.

This is what we have in the true anointed king over the church, the Christ, the Messiah. The Lord God has brought Jesus of Nazareth through the worst day of trouble in the offering up of His perfect life and His atoning death for us. He has had regard for this one holy offering, and in His resurrection God has declared Jesus the eternal Son of God, and the King of the world of resurrection. God saves His Christ, and God saves the church in this prefect Redeemer. He is the right hand of the Lord Almighty who has come in person to be the wisdom and power of God for us.

The more that we come to know this Jesus, the more we can understand that our fate is entirely dependent on Him. If God will not hear this one King in the day of trouble, if He will not grant Him His petitions, then we are utterly lost, for there is no other Name given among men by which we must be saved. But God will hear the prayers of the One who He installed forever as our eternal King. This is our trust, and we approach God now through this One appointed Ruler over the world to come.

Some people in this current age trust in their own military might, or their character or superiority over others. But if we worship God through Jesus Christ, this cannot be our story. We trust in the Name of the Lord our God. We believe in Jesus, and have no other plea before God than Him.

Every other king will eventually fail. Jesus never fails. If His death on a cross is victory for us, what will His resurrection reign mean for our eternal blessing? Other kings and kingdoms will collapse and fall, but in Jesus, we will rise and stand upright.

This is our secure hope. And in that hope we petition the Lord of hosts for the Body of Christ on earth. For some in that holy body today is a day of intense trouble. When we gather together in worship, we ask for the Lord to save the people of the King. May He answer us when we call. Even if we must be counted as sheep for the slaughter for a brief moment, we know that we are forever more than conquerors though Him who loved us and give Himself for us. May the Lord always hear the petitions of His glorious Son, and may He grant to Him everything that He requests.

Hebrews 8

Why would anyone need a priest? A priest is one who understands both the world of heaven and the world of earth. As someone who has lived on earth, he understands the challenges and opportunities of living in a place under a the Lord's just sentence of futility. He has experienced things like betrayal and loss. As someone who has lived in heaven, he knows what is important to Almighty God, and how we who have sinned can have peace with a God who will by no means clear the guilty. He works within a covenant administration established by God. A covenant administration contains the rules of engagement between a holy God and His worshiping people. A priest is a man who bridges heaven and earth according to those rules. What could be more important than that?

The true priest offers up sacrifices to God on behalf of people and pronounces blessings from God upon people. The problems with the Levitical priests of the Old Covenant were substantial. But in Jesus we have a far better Priest and a vastly superior covenant administration.

Our Priest serves from a superior location. The earlier Levitical priests had to work from earth, because they did not have the right to be seated with God on high. Jesus has ascended to that place of power. He does not minister in an earthly tent that is a symbolic portrayal of the temple in heaven, but He has entered heaven itself.

The covenant that Christ administers is based on the Promise of God. The Law of Israel said to the people of God, “Do this and live.” In the Promise, God says to His worshiping people, “I will do this for you so that you will live” Which is more secure, a covenant administration dependent on the faithfulness of God or one where the blessings can be taken away based on the failure of man? Even during the time of the Law, which promised an earthly place of rest based on the full obedience of the people, the Promise was still in effect, securing a heavenly Land. The Law teaches us about the sinfulness and weakness of people. The Promise proclaims to us the power and mercy of God through the provision of a Substitute. These lessons could be seen in the shadows of the Law, but the administration itself was very different from the Promise. The Law was destined for failure. The Promise of God can never lose.

There are many ways to demonstrate these points from the Old Testament Scriptures. One of the most straight-forward is to read the writings of the prophets who served during the time of the Law. Jeremiah lived under the Law, but God used Him as a herald of a coming New Covenant administration. If there were no problem with the ceremonial arrangements of the Law, why would the Lord have spoken of a New Covenant through His servants the prophets?

In Jeremiah 31, the prophet plainly shows that the problem with the Law was that the people of God did not keep it. A better covenant administration would be needed to address that great weakness. The best laws in the world cannot help anyone unless they are followed. According to the Law, the people of Israel did not continue in covenant with God.

There needed to be something in the New Covenant system that would address this fatal problem of the Law. In the New Covenant, the laws of God would be placed within God's people. Rather than being an external reality that could be applauded by the mind but rejected by the will, now the laws of the Lord will somehow be alive in the renewed lives of the New Covenant people. According to Jeremiah 31, this coming administration will be grounded in the promises of God. He will be our God. We will be His people. But also the experience of this life of promise will proceed from a renewed will. We do not yet see the culmination of this New Covenant life, but one day we will. Then the Word of God through the prophets will come to pass, that no one will have to teach his neighbor to know the Lord. We will all know Him just as surely as we will all be alive. The forgiveness of sin will be so permanent and complete, that God's ancient promise will be fulfilled: God will no longer even remember our sins.

This New Covenant life has come. We may feel that much of the joy and assurance of it seems to allude us at present. Yet the ground of our joy and assurance has already been provided. We are not waiting for the Messiah to be the Lamb of God. He has already done this. We are not hoping that a Man will rise again to resurrection life. It has already happened. We are not thinking that it would be a good thing if God would send His Spirit to dwell within His people. We have the Holy Spirit now. We can walk in the blessings of eternal life now as we consider our great High Priest.

The Old Covenant arrangement is now obsolete. The New Covenant has come in Christ. It must have been tempting for many first century Jews and God-fearing Gentiles who used to worship in Jewish synagogues to think about returning to the old ways in order to escape persecution. To do so would be to reject Christ as High Priest.

Jesus is the perfect High Priest. He knows both heaven and earth as One who has lived in both places. He knows as God as One who is God. He had the moral perfection and love necessary to be our Sacrifice. There is no other priest who can represent us before the Father today. Even though we pray for one another, and are together a kingdom priests who care for one another, we offer up all of our worship through one Man, and from one Man we receive all the blessings of heaven. The Old Covenant has vanished. The new and better way has been revealed in the Son of God.

Psalm 19

There was a day when God walked with man in the garden, and man heard the voice of God. In that day, there was perfect peace between man and God. Man understood what his Lord said, and God was pleased with man.

Then sin entered the world, and with sin came death. Death did not come as a matter of mechanical necessity or as a force of nature. Death came by the judgment of God. The world that we live in now feels a portion of the weight of divine displeasure that has come against us because of Adam's sin. A significant aspect of our current trouble has to do with our separation from God and His Voice.

Yet God has left us more than one testimony from His own glorious place of sovereign rule that we can and must listen to. The first testimony we call natural or general revelation. The second is special revelation, now given to us in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments.

No one can miss the natural revelation of God. It is all around us. The heavens declare the glory of God. They speak a question to every human being on the planet: “Who made us?” There is a story that the oceans tell. We could hear from God in the variety of the creatures and environments that He has created and sustains. But above them all we have the stars and the planets, and they speak to us. They insist that the proudest man who is most convinced of his own great abilities must confess that he could not do what God has done.

We should be humbled by this great Voice of natural revelation, and we should seek the Author of all things. The song of the stars is easily ignored by the busy man who has no time to look up at the sky and to consider. After years of ignoring the message that would have added depth to his being, now he has learned the habit of not seeing, not feeling, and not thinking.

He cheats himself out of so much joy. A wonderful story is being told over and over again, but he will not listen. God is continuously proclaimed in the things He has made, but who has time to hear? Perhaps there are those who listen in far-off lands. There is no doubt that the same story is being brilliantly told from pole to pole.

Consider the sun around which the earth revolves. Because of our planet's rotation on its own axis in space, we see the sun rising in the east and setting in the west. He is like a strong warrior, a runner, a bridegroom seeking his new bride. He leaves his tent in the morning and does not stop until he has arrived at his destination. Everyone knows him, but no man can stop him. He goes forth every day with confidence and joy. We are blessed by his light and heat as he pursues his daily assignment. But who made him, this sun, that does us so much good? And this is just one star in the vast skies.

This natural revelation is not the only way that God testifies to us of His existence and His glory. Since the days of our ancestors, the voice of the Lord has come to those who worship God. That voice came little by little and in various ways when God spoke in the Old Testament era to the Hebrews through appointed messengers. God gave Israel the Law, He recorded their history, He spoke words of profound wisdom, and He gave them prophets who taught of a Messiah and a better kingdom that would be established.

In these covenant documents recorded for His people in written form, God was pleased to reveal answers to them that they never could have discovered by examining nature. What has gone wrong with this world? Will God fix the problem? Will the ultimate plan of God touch my life? The Lord has revealed precious promises to those who worship Him. In doing this He has taught us about Himself, and about His plan to unite all things in His Son, things in heaven and things on earth.

After the coming of this great Son and the establishment of the worldwide kingdom of God in His church, God has given us a new revelation. The completed Scriptures confirm the fulfillment of the promises revealed earlier to Israel. The One who is the Word of God has come, and He has brought us salvation through His blood.

Together these testaments are the authoritative documents of the church. Whatever else may seem to divide us in our varied religious traditions and philosophical and practical debates, we have sixty-six books from heaven given through men.

This revelation of the Lord is perfect. It is a great help to the downcast. It brings wisdom to all kinds of people everywhere. It is what we need to make broken hearts rejoice again. Through these words of prophets and apostles we have something beyond the opinions of men. We have the written Word of God. In that Word we see the way of purity for the redeemed of the Lord. How can a man be declared pure in Jesus? How can he grow in his experience of purity? The Scriptures will give him the answer.

Better to have the authoritative message of our Savior through the Scriptures than to be the richest man on earth. But we need this Word to be living and active. We know how skillfully we learned to ignore natural revelation. Won't we just do the same thing with the Bible? The Son of God, who is the Word, enlivens the special revelation of God through His own Spirit. In Him we learn to love the truth that we would run from because of our sin.

May the Lord cause us to hear His voice in nature and especially in the Scriptures, and may we rejoice in the One who is the living Word, who is our only hope in both life and death. And may the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in the sight of our Rock and our Redeemer.

Psalm 18

We are told that the worshipers of the Lord need to live by faith. This faith, which is itself a gift of God, needs every supporting help that the Lord is pleased to give His people. When the church receives a good report of God's help for a man in need, faith takes in that Word, tests it according to the established body of Scripture, and remembers God. Even better than news of some deliverance is the experience of deliverance itself. The church gladly receives the help of her living Lord. The worshiper will remember that gift and sing of the faithfulness of God.

It is the duty of the Lord's servant to make good use of every gift from heaven. Has God given aid to a man who called upon His Name in distress? That man should remember the Lord, love Him, and ascribe to the Lord the strength that He alone possesses. He should consider again the certain Word from heaven in light of this gift of divine help. God is his rock. God is his stronghold. These things are true whether he gets help from God today or not. But the experience of a timely rescue reminds a weary soul of what is forever true, and the Spirit of God enlivens truth in the heart in the present moment of salvation.

The man needs to be aware of his need if he is to receive a saving experience with appropriate gratitude. Was he facing a minor trouble, or was he hopelessly entangled in the cords of the grave itself? God makes a man feel danger. Was the present difficulty a trickle of inconvenience or a torrent of destruction? There is no good news for a man who remains forever insensible to his need for help.

As an appropriate awareness of dire necessity is awakened within a man's heart, what does he do? He calls out to God in heaven. As he later reflects upon the events that have transpired, he testifies with confidence that God heard his voice.

How can he be so sure? Revelation takes the probable and turns it into that which is certain. The man who faces an overwhelming enemy on a field of battle, if when he cries out to God the earth shakes and lightening and torrential waters fall down upon his adversaries, the supposition that God heard his prayer feels very probable. It only becomes certain when divine revelation is received in his ear. The Word of God takes a promising experience and transforms it into a rock of revelation.

An observer of the fighting could say that the earth moved, and that a sudden storm changed the balance of power on the battlefield. Only the voice of God could tell a man the sure message that the Lord above together with His heavenly host came in the storm and the flood. This was not just a distant act of providence. He did it all, and He did it in response to the cry of His servant.

The Lord in heaven rules over the earth. In His great arsenal are all the weapons of nature and all the movements of all of His creatures. It is only through His Word that a man can confidently interpret the formidable use of power that was so timely and necessary. What does it all mean? The man of God is able to testify with confidence, “He rescued me, because he delighted in me.”

Where did that delight come from? Every worshiper of God should be able to acknowledge the power and love of God. But who can go on to say, “The Lord dealt with me according to my righteousness?” Who can say without any qualification, “I have kept the ways of the Lord?”

We have to find some way of understanding why the Lord would delight in a man who has sinned against Him. David was great worshiper of God, yet this man sinned against the Lord. Nonetheless, David has been counted as righteous in the Lord's sight because of his more righteous descendant, Jesus Christ. Only Jesus could say that an exhaustive and honest accounting of his heart and life would yield this conclusion: “I have not wickedly departed from my God. All his rules were before me. I was blameless before him, and I kept myself from guilt. The Lord has rewarded me according to my righteousness.” Every other man who truly knows that the Lord delights in him received that good Word based on the Source of his righteousness, the Son of God who died for him. He has been made humble in the honest recognition of his sin. Now he rightly confesses that God saves the humble who take refuge in His holy Son.

But does God really delight in the man who worships Him? Will God use His power to save Him? This delight of God in His church is not a convenient fiction for those who have religious inclinations. An experience of salvation may be impossible for a man to interpret with true certainty. But when God speaks to the church in His Word about what He has done for us in Christ, then we really do know that He loves us, and that He has moved heaven earth in order to glorify His Name in the rescue of His people.

This enlivens our faith and sets us in motion. We can do all things through Christ who strengthens us. God is with us, and we are with Him. This is not just our assessment of our experience. It is His Word, and Scripture cannot be broken.

The Father has made Jesus the Head of the nations. We are His subjects, and sons of God through Jesus Christ our Lord. The grave had its claws in our flesh, but Jesus took the wrath of God for us. Now our King lives in heaven. He is the God of our salvation, and He will deliver us from every enemy. Let us worship Him forever in the assembly of His people. He rescued us because He delighted in us. God will never stop loving Jesus. He will always delight in those who are united to Christ.

Psalm 17

There is so much that we do not know and cannot understand. We long for moral clarity, but it seems elusive at present. The Lord's worshiper lives today with too much confusion and too little knowledge. He desires heaven, not only for the joy and safety of life there, but also for the ethical certainty of a world where sin has no foothold.

There are occasions even now here below where God grants the beauty of vision to His church or to a specific servant who seeks Him in trial. Justice is not the same as injustice. Everything is not forever gray. As a man calls out to the God who dwells in a land of light, he begins to see right as right and wrong as wrong.

We do love to justify ourselves, and we may be unreasonably slow in acknowledging our own fault in a conflict with another person, but some situations are clear enough to demand our unambiguous assessment. If a worshiper is able to see the unrighteousness of an oppressor who seeks to destroy him, he may call out to God in heaven, who possesses not only perfect moral knowledge, but infinite power, and the limitless wisdom to know how and when to use that power.

The man who calls upon the Name of God for help at such a time is able to say that his cause is just, and to unambiguously ask God to hear him and to bring vindication. It may have taken him time to reach that point of holy boldness. Along the way, he sought understanding, and confessed any sin of his own in the matter before him. God tested the heart of His beloved servant. This man is in the right.

Now what can be done? The worshiper does not want to rush ahead, leading with unwise pronouncements. He knows the danger of speaking rashly, unwisely provoking an evil man of power with what might seem a timely and necessary statement of the truth. He does not want to transgress with his mouth. He knows that there are many occasions that demand silence. Stirring up violent men can easily lead to unnecessary murder.

What then is needed? God must act. God can protect the innocent who call out to Him for help. He can show His covenant faithfulness in that way to all who call upon His Name. He can rise up as a Defender and Savior of His people. Remember what He did for the Israelites when they cried out to Him in their days of bondage in Egypt? The Lord knows how to save. He is a Deliverer and Preserver of His people who take refuge in Him.

God is also able to keep us in His loving affection. We are His children through the One who is well-pleasing to Him. He has determined to see His worshipers through Christ, the Apple of His Eye. Our protection comes from this stable determination of God to find us in His Son. This is what it means for us to live in the shadow of His wings.

In heaven, violent men will not oppress us. Earth will not be like heaven until the return of the Man who won heaven for us. When that King returns, there will be a complete separation of the righteous and the wicked. On that day the kingdom of the Lord will come to earth as it is in heaven. Until then, there will be adversaries upon the earth. They may surround the Lord's servant, and greatly harm him. But we can rest in God.

We should not expect the unrighteous to show us pity. We should not suppose that they will be humble in their speech or gentle in their ways. They follow an evil master who prowls about like a roaring lion. He is seeking people to devour. He comes to steal and to destroy.

We should expect that we, who know the grace of the One who was wounded for our transgressions, would be people of tender mercy, gentleness, and humility, even toward our enemies. This may be the true battle of faith in the life of the man who wants to be faithful to the end – not that he will live through the trial, but that He will act as a man of life in a time of severe testing.

Yet it may please the Lord to hear the cry of His worshiper and to rise up and do what He alone must do. Do not presume that today is the day that you get to die for your faith. God knows how to free Peter from prison so that he can continue in His ministry. A proud Herod may die a gruesome and unexpected death if it is the Lord's will. He is able to rescue Daniel from the Lion's mouth. There are many ways that the Lord can deliver. We do not all die on a cross.

One Man did die there. Just before His arrest, He cried out for deliverance with the full clarity of a perfectly righteous heart. He said, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” For that Man, deliverance from God came through His death, and that deliverance was for us. God rescued our lives as the sword of the Lord's justice came down upon Jesus.

The vindication of the Lord's most righteous Servant came through His resurrection and ascension. His portion of victory did not come in His mortal life, but in His resurrection glory. Because of His suffering, we shall behold the face of the Almighty in the land of righteousness.

In this life, the Lord may choose to take a wicked oppressor out of our way in a moment. We should seek God's help for ourselves and for others now when we have a just cause. But even if His will is to save that judgment for another day, even if our lives should be taken from the earth, we know that we shall awake in a place of perfect moral clarity. And we shall be satisfied in the glory of the One who died for us.

Psalm 16

The world that the Messiah entered, the world where we now live, is not just material. It is full of spiritual activity. We should be very grateful that after Christ ascended on high, He sent the Holy Spirit from heaven upon His disciples. We should be thankful that genuine seeds of true spiritual life are continually being sown through the preaching of the Word of God by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. We should praise God that the Spirit of Adoption, by which we have been sealed for the day of redemption, is also a Spirit of Sanctification, lovingly helping us to grow in Christ and to turn away from sin. But everything that is spiritual on this earth is not necessarily the Holy Spirit.

The world is full of spiritual variety and with that variety comes danger. A man cannot eat every plant in the forest and expect to live. A worshiper of God needs to test the spirits, taking in the milk of the Word eagerly, but resolutely rejecting every idol that arouses his passion, distracting him from Christ, his first love.

God must preserve us. We cannot trust everything religious, everything fun, everything that excites us. Some passions are not holy or helpful. Are they animated by an unclean thing? Who can protect the worshiper from unseen enemies? The man who calls on the Name of God takes refuge in One who sees the unseen and is the source of all goodness.

It is so easy to pursue even a good endeavor, and to be moved in the direction of the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. A man cannot keep his soul in life, let alone in death, but God preserves him. If he is restored to the way of life every day and directed away from countless entanglements, it is God who reminds him again about what is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent, and worthy of praise. He hears the voice of God in the Word, and remembers. He wakes up from a moment of stupor, and rediscovers divine love. He thinks of the people that God has declared holy in the blood of the Lamb, and the graces that come to him from heaven move him in the direction of loving what God loves.

As the Lord's worshiper rediscovers the purity of true and renewed devotion, he acknowledges that the way of following other spirits is not safe or good. It leads to multiplied sorrows. He resolves again, by the God who saves him, to worship no idol. There is so much in this world that can be enjoyed in the presence of the Almighty. He does not need to be captivated by secret pleasures laced with a taste of rebellion.

He remembers that God is his first delight, and that the Lord who preserves him spiritually also takes good care of him physically. There is so much to enjoy as a gift from Him even now. Where is the food that did not come from God? And is there someone who knows more about good music than God? What about sports and adventure? The Lord made the body and gives his people the best contests of strength and endurance. If there is anything under the sun that can be enjoyed in faith, then it can be received as a gift from on high, sanctified by the Word of God and prayer. And if the delight of a fresh new day on earth in the presence of God is not enough, the worshiper can contemplate his inheritance in the heavens, for he has peace with God through Jesus Christ and is a co-heir of heavenly realms with the Son of God.

“And though this world with devils filled should threaten to undo us, we will not fear for God has willed His truth to triumph through us.” It is a great moment when sanity is restored, and when truth prevails. God gives us pure counsel. He gives us a Word that brings life. We remember Him again, and we repent and believe. Our souls are further enlivened with a taste of heaven, and the new man within us instructs us in the night. But what if we are plagued by nightmares of the flesh that seem to insist that we do what our awakened spirits would easily see as wrong and worthy only of rejection? It is still God who is able to keep us. He is close by, at our right hand. We will not be utterly shaken away from Him. We will stand in Christ.

Therefore, we can be glad even now. We can rejoice in God as we enjoy His good gifts. He will not abandon our lives to the grave. He will bring us to a place beyond the corruption of this world. In that place are the saints, declared holy in the blood of our divine Substitute. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are there already. King David's body may still rest in a grave on earth, but he is in heaven with Jesus, and his whole being rejoices securely.

A path of life has been revealed to us in the Firstborn from the dead, the Firstfruits of the resurrection, Jesus the Righteous. He alone perfectly discerned the spiritual dangers of this world below. He was full of the Holy Spirit without measure. God would not allow Him to remain in the depths of corruption. Like Jonah in the belly of a great fish, three days was enough for the body of Jesus to be in a borrowed tomb. He rose again from the dead and ascended into heaven. He has become for us the way to eternal life and our present Protector in this world of danger and opportunity.

Because of His great victory, we have an expectation, not of eternal wrath, but of the fullness of joy. The Word of God made flesh has accomplished our salvation. The continual whispers of idolatry all around us will be silenced. Even now at God's right hand in heaven there are the greatest pleasures. The resurrection of the One has assured us of the eternal blessedness of the many, for we have been found in Him, and He has been pleased to dwell in us forever.

Psalm 15

Is it an easy thing to be admitted to heaven, where God dwells? Is death the only requirement?

God dwells among men in His worshiping people. In the days of the inception of the Old Covenant, the Lord instructed Moses to build a special tent, the tabernacle. Within that tent, the place where God dwelt was called the Holy of Holies. Only one man, the High Priest was allowed there, only once a year, and only with the blood of the sacrifice.

This was a model of God's temple in another realm, in heaven where God lives. If it was dangerous for man to come into the picture of Holy of Holies in the Jewish Tabernacle, it was far more dangerous for someone to come before God in the real heaven. When a prophet, such as Isaiah, was miraculously brought into the presence of God above, he was overwhelmed by God's holiness and his own sinfulness. See Isaiah 6. Only God can say how people can come before Him, and He has determined that this will only be accomplished through an acceptable Mediator.

How did it become so difficult for people to dwell with God? Didn't God walk and talk with Adam in the Garden of Eden without any Mediator? Yes, but then sin came into the world, and now there is a separation between heaven and earth. Only God can heal that breach, and only through a Mediator who can dwell in the presence of the Almighty.

This Mediator must walk blamelessly. God has spoken to us regarding His Law, and revealed to us the perfection of the divine character. In the Law we see the greatness of the Lawgiver. The one who desires to dwell on high with God must have the righteousness that God demands.

Back to our sin problem... Who can tame even his own tongue? Since sin entered the world, the tongue has been a restless evil, full of deadly poison. But even if a man could be found who could speak only when he should, would he always say what is right? Even if he always found the right words, would he always say them in the right way? And even if he had had perfect discipline over his speech, what about the secret thoughts of his heart? It is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks. Who has perfect thoughts and desires?

This is the unfeigned goodness that is required if we are to dwell with the Lord in heaven. A worshiper there must not only love God and neighbor perfectly, he must also be sinless in his words and even in his thoughts.

Before we could ever imagine that there might be some way for a man to come into the full presence of God in heaven, we would have to find at least one righteous man. Rather than assuming that everyone goes to heaven just because, we ought to be amazed to find that even one man was allowed into the Lord's holy place. If there were one man who did what was required, one man without sin, then we could begin to consider how that man might be our Mediator with God, and how there might be a way for us to come to God in that one man. But where would we find even one man who possessed the perfect love for God and man in all his thoughts, words, and actions?

When God searched for such a one, He saw that all men in this world of sin were very far from perfect. Therefore He Himself became Man for us in the person of His eternal Son. He obeyed the Law that man did not keep. There were many men who made a claim of outward ceremonial righteousness in the system of symbols that God established in order to teach us of a company kingdom, but only Jesus, the Son of God, had the unblemished moral righteousness that was required in order to ascend the true holy hill of God.

Love came in person from heaven, and He loved without the slightest inconsistency. He spoke the truth in love. He did not ever have so much as a slanderous thought, let alone a defiling word. He gave Himself fully for His neighbor on the cross, and certainly did nothing wrong that deserved the punishment of men or the censure of God. He saw His enemies in need, and because of His perfect impulse of love in accord with the divine decree, He called us His friends, and laid down His life for us.

He had a perfect hatred, also in accord with the plan of the Almighty, for those men and angels who would remain forever vile, who would reject the ambassadors of peace who preach the good news of Christ. But those who, in the mystery of the Lord's sovereign will, would fear God and call upon His Name, He would love. Not only would He honor them; He would die the death that they deserved.

Through Him a way has been provided for sinners to dwell on God's heavenly hill. Now we do what Jesus told people to do when He came preaching to Israel: “Repent and believe in the gospel.” See Mark 1:14. This gospel is proclaimed through the ambassadors that the exalted Christ sends forth from the church. We tell all men everywhere to repent of sin and to trust in Christ. All over the world people are being brought into the New Testament temple, the worshiping body of Christ.

But how will we, who still fall into all kinds of sin on earth, every dwell in the presence of the Almighty above? It is God's pleasure that those who are in Christ will not only believe in Him, but will be fully sanctified through Him. They are not only declared holy in Him, they are becoming holy by His grace. As they are taken to the hill of God above through their Mediator Jesus, they will be perfected in holiness. They will never lie again. They will never be greedy. They will never take advantage of the weak and the poor. They will live in the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ in a world of holy love. Having found the glories of heaven through one righteous Man, they will never be moved away from all that is good.

Psalm 14

Man is a great creature, but He needs to worship the Creator who is so very far above Him. God created man in His own image. Man is the singular image-bearer of the One who is the glorious Source of all life. Yet man is only an image, and nothing can be right if he insists on launching an attack against God by challenging the authority of the Lord.

If you had a son who somehow learned disobedience, this attack against parental authority might show up in many different ways. Your son might be slow to obey. When he was caught in some violation of your wishes, he might make excuses rather than admit his own guilt. He might argue every instruction that you gave him, or speak against you, or insist that you hated him. But what if he just denied that you existed? That would be the worst insult.

This is what the fool does with God. He should worship Him and bow before Him, but in his heart he says, “There is no God.”

Everyone knows that there is a God. All around us and even within us there is ample testimony to the majesty and power of the Uncaused Cause. Yet the one who will not worship the Lord insists on the foolish and insulting pretense that there simply is no God. Can something come from nothing? There has to be a Source of being.

Not only do we see His fingerprints in a world of order, beauty, goodness, truth and justice; we also observe the brokenness of our current condition and we wonder. This meditation should also lead us to God as we call out to Him for answers that only He can give. We also have the mysterious testimony within us of the longing of our hearts for something beyond this life and for a more perfect ending to the story of existence that befitting such a powerful and good being as the One who is.

All of this is not enough for the fool to profitably consider. Why? He is like that child who will not bow the knee to any superior. Created with such great ability and potential, he will not permit any rivals. He cannot seem to live at peace with creation, and He will not worship the Lord. He gives God the ultimate insult. He does not even believe that He exists.

This is a deliberate cover-up strategy in the face of his own guilt and corruption. He wanted his own way, and it has led to unclean thoughts, bad deeds, and destructive consequences. This is the way of one who will not acknowledge God. In our fallen nature, this is the condition of all men.

The Lord looks down from heaven on His great creature. Is there anyone that does good? Is there anyone who understands the true nature of the breach between heaven and earth, the way to peace with God and the restoration of lost blessings of life? Is there anyone who is able to give up his childish rebellion against His Maker and seek after the Lord?

No. Not one. If God did not seek us first, we would never even begin to seek Him. The way to life has to come from Someone outside us working inside us. The way worshipers are reclaimed and restored, and the way that heaven and earth will one day be reunited, must come from God.

If you want to see proof of this all around you, look at the way that those who have not been brought to the sincere worship of the Lord think of others who have been claimed as the Lord's redeemed. Look at the history of Israel and the church. Look at the seeds of hypocrisy and murderous rebellion even among those who make a show of their religious righteousness, but then deny the power and mystery of godliness. Look at those who cling to religious life as their own possession, a means of earthly gain. How do they treat the humble worshipers of the Lord who would get in their way by speaking the truth in love?

Hypocrites may claim to understand the secrets of heaven and earth, but they have no knowledge. They may parade their self-proclaimed righteousness for everyone to see, but they have forgotten mercy and the weightier matters of the Law. They refuse to remember that people were all created in the image of God and that they should honor them with respect and dignity because of the Creator. They treat God's redeemed as if they were bread to be eaten according to their own pleasure. They do not honestly call upon the Lord. They may profess to love Him with their lips, but they deny Him every day with their lives.

This is not just about some people. This is the natural state of all people after the Fall. And this is the world that Jesus came into in order to work a glorious salvation. How was he treated by men? He was God in the hands of angry sinners. They wanted to kill Him. Yet it was in that death that He willingly gave Himself as an offering for sin that was acceptable to the Father. In Him, God has been claiming a people from the days of Adam to the present. Through this obedient Son of God all Israel will be saved, even those from the nations of the world that now call upon His Name.

Our salvation could never have come from our own goodness. Without the atoning Messiah, the prospect of contact with the true God could only bring terror. Many have no power, but those who have it have used their privileges to shame the plans of the weak and the poor. What will they do when the God to whom the poor man calls returns and shows that there is a God of justice after all?

Salvation for God's true Israel is coming out of the heavenly Zion. The Lord Jesus will restore the fortunes of those who worship Him in union with His Son. Because of this assurance, Jacob can rejoice even now, and Israel can be glad.

Psalms 13

Our God is in heaven, and He does all that pleases Him. We are on earth, and we have our own ideas about our needs and about the desires and troubles of people we love who are suffering. As those who cast our cares upon the Lord, we wonder whether God is listening.

Discouragement and unbelief can settle into the soul after years of prayer. Wrestling with God is tiring and confusing. The true worshiper of the Lord must not walk away from communion with the Lord. He continues to cry out for help. He does not give up his petition, especially when it is something that flows from a promise that God Himself has made.

Yet he may wonder, and it is not rude to ask, “How long, O Lord?” Has God forgotten His beloved child? It may feel that way to those who ask, seek, and knock persistently, and are still left with the feeling that God will not answer.

The meaning of these trials may be very difficult or even impossible to discern. Why would God seem to hide His face from one who loves Him who calls out to Him day and night? No doubt he is being trained for eternity, but today's struggle may feel like more than he can bear. Through it all he remembers God.

The righteous man may have enemies at the door. They may threaten to take away his property by force. They may even seek to harm his family and friends. If he stands in the way it is at the risk of his life. Some enemies will not be satisfied until they have murdered those who oppose them.

To face a trial of this intensity is a very serious burden on even the most faithful worshiper of God. He thinks about it all the time. He talks to his own soul. He addresses the depths of his heart. He wonders what it is all about. When will this burden be lifted?

What do these enemies want? Proud men and angels will never be happy being subservient to anyone. They must be exalted over others. The worshiper, particularly under trial, learns how to be a servant of God. To be quietly humble and happy is a gift from the Lord to those who are being sanctified through difficulty. That blessing should not be despised. Yet the worshiper cannot bear to have an evil foe exalted over him. He will learn to value subservience before God and obedience to lawful authority, but do not ask him to be happy about abusive thugs who abuse the innocent and insist that everyone else in the world worship them.
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So he prays to God. He learns meekness and boldness before the Lord. He continues to bring his petitions to God and to ask for help. He does not renounce God, or fight against the sovereign lordship of the Almighty.

He asks for help not only for his body, but also for his soul. So much of his battle is fought within his own spirit. Will he give in to unbelief, or will he rest in and follow the God who has claimed him? This is today's battle for the suffering worshiper until his mortal life is over. He needs to live. He has a post on this suffering earth, and he wants to be faithful to his calling.

His enemies want him to fail. They may seek to kill him, but they certainly want to see him curse God to His face. This is the desire of the enemies of the Lord, that the elect would abandon a life of holy waiting and trusting in the Lord of heaven. The Lord's servant needs to maintain his position as one who is resting on the Rock revealed to him in the Word of the Lord. His firm foundation is not in the experience of his spiritual feelings but in the revelation of God's Word granted to the community of those who call upon the Lord's Name. This is the only way that he will stand on the truth and not be shaken.

As the worshiper hears the Word of truth, He remembers the tender mercies of God, and he believes. He hears the voice of others in covenant assembly who also remember and believe.

He knows the salvation of God. The Lord has worked deliverance for His people for many centuries. Even now, the Lord has not abandoned His people, but is at work training them up for this life and the next. Especially he considers that the salvation of the Lord is not restricted to the past or the present, but is also a matter of faith in what has not yet been seen. The Lord will save. He will save us in this life, but beyond this life we will enter into a world of salvation. As he remembers the steadfast love of the Lord, he rejoices with all the people of God.

In these gatherings of worship those who love the Lord are kept by the power of the Almighty. They sing to God, and they reflect on the bounty of the Lord's provision, even at a time when they felt abandoned by God.

We who gather now in New Covenant assemblies have the great privilege of the prophetic Word made sure through the events of salvation that have already take place. We know the tender mercies of God through Christ as historical fact. The King who died on a cross for His people has come. He has risen and ascended to the heights of heaven. He is God and Man, and He still does whatever pleases Him.

We take our place together in humble adoration of the Triune God. We know that the Lord has not actually forgotten us. We continue to rely on His covenant faithfulness, and we call to mind His bountiful gifts to us of heavenly love.

Psalm 12

It can seem hard to follow the Lord in a time and place when His Name is respected. Even then we still have a struggle on our hands because of our own sin and the challenge of living in a world that is under the Lord's sentence of futility as a result of the Fall. But it is especially difficult when it appears that all the godly are gone, and there is no one around us to comfort us.

This feeling of being the last righteous person standing in faith is not always accurate. Remember Elijah after his contest with Jezebel. She was seeking to kill him, and he became convinced that no other worshipers of God were left. God had to tell him in 1 Kings 19, “I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him.” He gave Elijah a job to do, some of which would only be completed by his successor Elishah, Elijah's life was not over, and he was not alone.

But there is such a thing as solo warfare, and when Christ died on the cross, His disciples had scattered. Perhaps John was there almost to the end. Jesus' mother and a few of the women who had accompanied Him in His ministry were left as eyewitnesses. But what He did on the cross He had to do alone.

What a great blessing it is for us to have a faithful community of courageous lovers of God standing beside us in our day of greatest trial! This is what we should always have in the church, and it should have been that way throughout the history of Old Testament Israel. But there are times when Samsons fight the battle of conquest alone. The faithful vanish from among the children of man, and the Lord's warrior has no one left next to him in his suffering.

A man can even be alone in some great work despite a large crowd of people with Him who claim to be true worshipers of the Lord. It is hard enough for Job to face loss in silence. It is much harder once his friends begin to wrongly suggest that the reason for his trials must be his secret sin. It is hard for the Son of God to die by Himself in the greatest battle of faith in history. It is far worse when religious leaders are stirring up people against the Lord of lords.

In a dark time there may be many making a big show of their spiritual purity, but it's just a show. The man who fights for God alone in the midst of a crowd of unfaithful hypocrites learns that people are capable of being amazingly double-hearted. Could it be that some who claimed to have admired Jesus and followed him for a time might actually get to the point when they would rejoice in His suffering?

What can a man do when everyone utters spiritually gilded lies to his neighbor? What is the right way to respond when lips that used to flatter now give a kiss of betrayal? Still, there is a friend that sticks closer than a brother, and God has told us that He will always be with us. Yet a day comes for the Messiah when He cries out these words: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Jesus was heard in that day of suffering love. God knows how to rescue the righteous. He Himself is the Source of all righteousness. It is this righteousness of God that demands that the requirements of His justice shall be met.

Heaven will not be a kingdom where moral confusion reigns, and where the possibility of religious hypocrisy steals away our perfect joy. Lying lips and the boasting tongues of the proud will be cut off. At the present, defeat does not seem like a possibility to those who are accustomed to asserting mastery over others simply by using their voices. They speak like the divine Word that must be implicitly obeyed, but they utter lies, and they pursue what is evil

There is only One who is the true Word of God. He died for the transgressions of those who worship Him, This One is the living and active Word. Before Him all are naked and exposed.

Like the Israelites when they were in bondage in Egypt, we have become aware of our need for a powerful Redeemer, and we have turned to the Lord in prayer. When God sent Jesus to die for us, He saw our poverty, and He came for us at the cost of His Son's life.

If Jesus demonstrated His love for us in His death, and if He has shown His glorious power in His resurrection, surely He will not leave His people groaning on earth forever. Every day the Lord rescues people out of despair and pain and brings them to a world where there is perfect joy. He will come again finally to fulfill all of His promises. He will give His suffering children the safety that they pray for.

God cannot lie. His Word is pure. He will keep all His promises. He will guard us and keep us forever. Though those with lying lips may surround us, the Lord will come. Our hope is in Him.

Psalm 11

The worshiper of God has been granted the perfect hope in Christ, who is already seated at the right hand of the Father in heaven. Because of our union with Him in His life, death, and resurrection, we have been granted a salvation that cannot be better.

In Christ we are already in the heavens. See Ephesians 2:6. But we still live here. We don't yet see everything in perfect submission to Christ. Everyone is not at peace with God, and they may not be at peace with those who call upon His Name. This may lead to some mild discomfort or even to more serious danger.

This tension between our perfect eternal security in heaven and our present circumstances of conflict can be very confusing. When threats against the worshipers of God are real, what should we do? Should we stand together where we are, perhaps even losing our lives, or should we flee for survival, so that we can continue to do the work that God has for us on the earth?

Whether we stay or go, the first thing we need to do is to take refuge in the Lord. Not only do we have a great High Priest who is able to sympathize with us, we also have a great King who is able to defend us. This does not mean that it is wrong for us to flee to the mountains in the face of a coming assault against the church. If God says stay, we stay; if He says run, we run. Sometimes He wants us to flee.

When Jesus in Luke 21 prepared His disciples for the intense trouble that would come upon Jerusalem in the generation after his death and resurrection He said to them, “When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near. Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, and let those who are inside the city depart, and let not those who are out in the country enter it, for these are days of vengeance, to fulfill all that is written.” Centuries earlier, in the days of Jeremiah, the obedient course of action for the people of God was to go peacefully to Babylon rather than to resist the armies coming against them. Centuries before that when gave the command that Israelite babies be murdered, it was commendable for the Egyptian midwives to lie. Sometimes you are called do what is necessary to preserve life.

This can be a hard word to hear for the man of faith who has it in his own mind that the right course of action is always to take your stand against those who hate the Lord and even to die in the face of overwhelming opposition. As in all things, we need to be ruled by God's Word and not our own impulses. It can be personal pride or presumption, and not faith, that insists on dying. God may be telling His people to run away and live.

But how do we know if God wants us to flee? Do not assume that you must run away just because people speak against the church or because there are occasional acts of persecution. These are normal. We still stay as long as we can. But when the whole fabric of a society has been utterly destroyed, when the leading people are so corrupt that they are determined to use their full military power to kill those who worship God through Jesus Christ, the worshipers of God need to consider. What can the righteous do? They need wisdom from heaven.

We do not need to live in fear of men, but the church needs to seriously consider whether an assault from God Himself is bringing utter destruction upon the land where they live. Consider the facts presented in the book of Acts. The big story of evil there was the murderous persecution of the church by ruling Jewish authorities in league with the Romans. That outrageous offense brought the desolation that culminated in the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. That judgment came from God. He just used Titus and the Romans.

How about Sodom? It was the murderous wickedness and immorality of the people and their abuse of those who were in need that brought about the destruction of their city in Genesis 19. Would it have been best for Lot and His household to stay there saying, “As for me and my household, this is our home, and we are going to die for the Lord here?” No, it was God who had determined to destroy. He gave the order to Lot's family. Run. Run fast. Don't look back. Remember Lot's wife.

Our home is not here. We seek the prosperity of the Babylon where God has placed us, but our home is in the Jerusalem that is above. When the Lord rains coals on those who love violence, it is not a time for the church to stay out of a misguided sense of loyalty to the place where we live now.

It is understandable that Christians would have the impulse to die in faith. Paul was willing to be cut off from Christ for the sake of his brothers according to the flesh, the Jews, that they might be saved. Some Jews did see Christ as the Messiah. Many did not, and some even thought that they were serving God when they put Christians to death. What can the righteous do in such a case?

One righteous Man chose not to flee to the mountains when the wrath of God was coming upon a whole community. Jesus stayed. There were those who were telling Him to prove who He was by coming down from the cross. Instead He demonstrated His love by dying for us there. Because He did not flee, we get to live. To say that we admire what He did for us would be a great understatement. Most days, the church serves Him by a being a living sacrifice. Today may not be the day that He brings you to heaven.

Whether we stay and die, or flee in order to live more for Christ here, either way we can know this for certain: The Lord is righteous. He loves righteous deeds. The upright in Christ shall behold his face. Hold on to the hope that is secure forever for us in the heavens, and live for the One who stayed on the cross to secure your eternal blessing.