What God Has Promised

Psalm 91

 

You will not fear the terror of the night,

nor the arrow that flies by day,

nor the pestilence that stalks in darkness,

nor the destruction that wastes at noonday.

A thousand may fall at your side,

ten thousand at your right hand,

but it will not come near you.  —Psalms 91:5-8

 

So much depends on what “it" means. 

 

Old Nick would have us believe that God’s promises have failed when difficulties  come our way, but God never promised deliverance from trouble. "Tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, and the sword" may be our lot (Romans 8:25). 

 

God has promised, however, that He'll be with us in our troubles and will protect our souls from destruction. The real me—the indestructible, immortal, remembering, feeling, thinking part of me that I call "myself"—cannot be harmed! 

 

Jesus expressed that thought with a wry paradox. "Some of you will be put to death... But not a hair of your head will perish" (Luke 21:16-18).

 

God has not promised that you and I will live untroubled lives. He has, however, promised that He will hear us when we call; He will be with us in our troubles; He will rescue us from evil-doing and “beautify” our souls through our struggles; and in the end He will satisfy our deepest longings with everlasting Love (91:15,16). Therefore, we “will not fear” and we will not fall. We will never know defeat; “it will not come near” us. No, in all our troubles we are more than conquerors through Him who loves us (Romans 8:37).

 

God has not promised skies always blue,

Flower-strewn pathways all our lives through;

God has not promised sun without rain,

Joy without sorrow, peace without pain.

God hath not promised we shall not know

Toil and temptation, trouble and woe;

He hath not told us we shall not bear

Many a burden, many a care.

God hath not promised smooth roads and wide,

Swift, easy travel, needing no guide;

Never a mountain, rocky and steep,

Never a river, turbid and deep.

            

But God has promised strength for the day,

Rest for the labor, light for the way,

Grace for the trials, help from above,

Unfailing sympathy, undying love. 

—Annie Johnson Flint

David Roper

Eucatastrophe

Psalm 74

Direct your steps to the endless  ruins;

the enemy has destroyed everything in the sanctuary!

Your foes have roared in the midst of your meeting place;

they set up their own signs for signs.

They were like those who swing axes

in a forest of trees.

And all its carved wood

they broke down with hatchets and hammers.

They set your sanctuary on fire;

they profaned the dwelling place of your name,

bringing it down to the ground. 

This is a graphic description of the destruction of Solomon's temple by the Babylonian army in 587 BC. 

You’re there! You can hear the curses and profane shouts of the soldiers. You can see them swinging their axes against the pillars that support the building, razing it to the ground, reducing one of the architectural wonders of the ancient world to a pile of rubble. He invites you to “Lift your feet over these endless ruins. Pick your way across them.” (74:3).

The destruction of Israel’s temple? The place in which God said he would bring salvation to the world? An unthinkable catastrophe. But an event that J.R.R. Tolkien would call a "eucatastrophe" (a good catastrophe), a situation in which everything gone wrong goes irrevocably right.

With the words "God, my King" (74:12) the poet turns from the destruction of temple to an indestructible God and a rehearsal of his mighty deeds on behalf of his own. The  rest of the narrative (the Bible) tells us how he worked through history to restore Israel’s temple and give it a greater glory than ever before. The prophet Haggai wrote, “The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts. And in this place I will give peace, declares the Lord of hosts” (Haggai 2:9).’” It was in this place that Jesus appeared in all his glory to bring salvation and peace to the world. A eucatastrophe indeed!

Are you walking through the rubble of your fondest dream?  I wonder what God is up to?

David Roper

2.7.20

God's Plantings

"Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord" (1 Corinthians 15:58).

In 1627, Samuel Rutherford penned a letter to Marion M'Naught, wife of William Fullerton, minister of a small Presbyterian church in Kirkcudbright, Scotland. Apparently things were not going well for William, and he had few to "speak a good word" for him. He wanted God to "transplant" him to another place.

Rutherford wrote. "All God's plants, set by His own hand, thrive well. Ask of God a submissive heart. Continue for the love of the Prince of your salvation, who is standing at the end of your way, holding up in His hand the prize and the garland to the race-runners. Your reward shall be with the Lord, although the people be not gathered (as the prophet speaks); and suppose the work do not prosper...you shall not lose your reward.”

So you're not the best preacher in town, so people don't gather in large numbers to hear you speak and the work does not seem to be prospering. "Remain with God." (1 Corinthians 7:24). Pray, teach, listen, love, grow in grace and truth until God in His wisdom "extrudes you," to borrow Francis Schaeffer's colorful phrase.

Continue "for the love of the Prince of your salvation" (John 21:15-17). Never give up. "You shall not lose your reward."

David Roper

2.5.20

Afterward!

Nevertheless I am continually with You;

You hold me by my right hand.

You will guide me with Your counsel,

And afterward you will receive me into glory. —Psalm 73:23,24

This poem is concerned with the old question: Why do good things happen to bad people? And conversely,why do bad things happen to those that are good? (73:13,14).

Asaph, Israel's poet, was troubled by these questions until he "went into the sanctuary of God." There, in God's presence, he came upon the answer: There's an "end" for every human being—literally an "afterward." The so-called "good life" ends in the grave (73:17-20).  

Asaph continues: "My flesh and my heart will fail" (I too will die), but God is the strength of my life and my portion forever. He is "continually" with me, holding my right hand, guiding me with his counsel, and "afterward" (same word as vs. 17) He will "receive me into glory.” Unlike those who prospered in this life, Asaph had God and he had him now and forever (73:23-26). "Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow!" Who could ask for anything more?

Years ago I heard J.I. Packer telling a story about a don at Oxford University whose colleagues discriminated against him because of his Christian faith. Packer was trying to console him when the man interrupted him: "It's fine," he replied with a twinkle in his eye, "for I have God and they do not." 

Asaph winds his poem down to the same conclusion: 

Whom have I in heaven but you 

and there is nothing on earth that I desire besides You.

My flesh and my heart may fail,

but God is the strength of my heart

and my portion forever...

Thus the nearness of God is my good (73:25-28).

That's only good life worthy of the name .

David Roper

Unnecessary Things

“Satan has the intention of detaining us with unnecessary things and thus keeping us from those that are necessary. Once he has gained an opening in you of a handbreadth, he will force in his whole body together with sacks full of useless questions.” 

—Luther, Instruction from the Saints to the Church in Erfurt (1522)

I’m trying to simplify my life these days, to be more comfortable with things I don’t know and will never know until I get to heaven. 

I find myself more open to mystery and uncertainty; I’m able to embrace more ambiguity. My questions are rarely true or false, but multiple–choice. I believe more ardently now than ever before, but in fewer and fewer things.

There are things I believe with all my heart—the Apostle’s Creed wraps up most of them, I think—but other, more remote aspects of theology that once dominated my thoughts don’t weigh on my mind anymore. Chesterton said that angels fly because they take themselves lightly. I’m trying to learn how to fly. 

The main thing for me now is not to know all the answers, but to know God, made real and personal in Jesus. I find that few things are necessary now, "really only one" (Luke 10:42). 

One of the by–products of this shift is that I no longer have the urge to mold people to my theological presuppositions. I can be more tolerant of those that disagree with me; I can let them be. Just because they don’t agree with me doesn’t mean they’re wrong. 

Another result is that I find myself more open to Christians that are not exactly my kind. It’s with “all the saints” that we know all the dimensions of God’s love, Paul reminds us (Ephesians 3:18). I can learn from all of them. 

Something happened to me some years ago that reinforced my thinking along these lines. I was a student then at the Graduate Theological Union, a consortium of seminaries in Berkeley, California. One of the schools was a seminary in which Jesuit priests are prepared. I took most of my classes there. 

One winter I enrolled in a tutorial with Dr. John Huesman, a Jesuit priest and ranking Hebrew scholar. I expected to learn from Fr. Huesman, but I learned a good deal more than I expected. 

One cold, windy afternoon, we were sitting at the kitchen table in his tiny apartment reading Isaiah 53. As I began to read the text, I looked up into the good doctor’s eyes, saw them glisten and the tears began to flow. He was weeping, not over my translation (which doubtlessly grieved him), but over the truth. 

“David,” I thought to myself, “You’ve read this passage many times, but not once have you wept over the Suffering Servant. You have much to learn from this man.” 

Emerson’s words come to mind: “Every man is in some way my superior.” In that I can learn from him. This is especially true of those whom God considers his intimate friends. I can learn devotion and holiness from them, even if they’re not exactly my kind.

David Roper

Open wide

Psalm 81

I am the LORD your God,

who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.

Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it. —Psalm 81:10

This verse is a direct quote from the preamble to the Ten Commandments: “I am the LORD your God, who brought you up out of Egypt. Thou shalt not; thou shalt not; thou shalt..." (Exodus 20:2).

Here in this psalm, however, where you might expect to find another list of rules, God offers a grace-note: “Open your mouth wide and I will fill it."

Israel's history, like mine, is a tale of underachievement, yet God does not call for greater effort. He rather asks us to lay our "doing" down and receive what He has to offer.

Trying to keep a bunch of rules and make ourselves better is a losing cause. I know because I tried it for years. God alone is the source of goodness for He alone is good.  If we open our mouths wide He will, in his time, fill us with love, joy, peace, patience, and all the other goodness we admire in Him and seek for ourselves. He will feed us with the "finest of the wheat," and satisfy us with "honey from the rock" —sweetness flowing from an unexpected source.(Psalm 81:16).

Weary, working, burdened one,

Wherefore toil you so?

Cease your doing; all was done

Long, long ago. —James Proctor

David Roper
1.26.20

Fortitude

"With God we shall do valiantly; for He it is who will tread down our foes."—Psalm 108:13

As a child I loved The Wizard of Oz and being a timid child was drawn to The Cowardly Lion. In the end, as you know, the lion was given a medal for valor. “Look what it says," he exclaimed, "'COURAGE’. Ain’t it the truth, ain’t it the truth!”

Physical courage is one thing; moral courage is another. Sometimes the hardest battles are fought within. Emily Dickinson wrote, "To fight aloud is very brave, but gallanter, I know, who charge within the bosom, the cavalry of woe..." Fortitude is the name we give to this virtue. 

Fortitude is not simply one of the virtues, it's the virtue that gives strength to all the other virtues. Chastity, honesty, patience, mercy are hard-earned virtues in a world like ours. It's fortitude that enables us to endure. 

Aquinas wrote, ”The principal act of fortitude is endurance, that is, to stand immovable in the midst of dangers.” Fortitude is "a long obedience in the right direction"; it is doing the right thing over the long haul despite the consequences. Fortitude is sticking with a hard marriage; staying in a small place when prominence beckons; refusing to betray a moral principle to get along or to get ahead. We can do these things because God is with us, treading down our foes. 

I think of a scene in C.S. Lewis' The Last Battle: Jill Pole asks, “What do you think is inside the stable?” “Who knows?” Tirian replied.  “Two Calormenes with drawn swords, as likely as not, one on each side of the door... There’s no knowing. But courage, child. We are all between the paws of the true Aslan."

Ain't it the truth! Ain’t it the truth!

David Roper

1.27.20