“Stonie Hearts Will Bleed”

But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared. —Psalm 130:4 

 

The poet speaks out of a deep depression in which self-help was of no help at all. His depression was not caused by persecution, sickness, or homesickness, as it was on so many other occasions, but by guilt—that gut-wrenching sensation that we have gone wrong. 

 

But “with God there is forgiveness,” a release from the anxiety and guilt that produces “fear”—not servile fear, but the fear of wronging the God who loves us and so freely and quickly forgives us. It is the Lord himself for whom the writer longs: “I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope” (Psalm 130:5)—“his word,” that word of assurance that all is well: “Your sins are forgiven… Go in peace” (Luke 7:48).

 

Forgiveness is immediate, but in human frailty our assurance of that forgiveness may be delayed. The poet waits as a night watchman waits for the morning, a hope that will not disappoint him, for though the darkness may seem endless, day-break is at hand.

 

Once again the experience of the one (the poet) can become the experience of the many: 

 

O Israel, hope in the Lord!

For with the Lord there is steadfast love,

and with him is plentiful redemption.

And he will redeem Israel

from all his iniquities (130:7).

 

It is not God’s wrath, but his love that warms and wins our hearts. “It is the goodness of God” that draws us to repentance (Romans 2:4).

 

Though I fail, I weep:

Though I halt in place,

Yet I creep

To the throne of grace.

 

Then let wrath remove;

Love will do the deed:

For with love

Stonie hearts will bleed. —George Herbert

 

David Roper

8.19.20

What Can the Righteous Do?

Behold, the wicked bend the bow;

they have fitted their arrow to the string

to shoot in the dark at the upright in heart; 

If the foundations are destroyed,

what can the righteous do?” (Psalm 11:2,3)

 

Old folks have been saying it for years, but, by golly, this time it seems to be true: The world is indeed going to hell in a hand basket.  What on earth can we do?

 

David’s friends offered the counsel of despair: "Flee like a bird to your mountain...” (11:1), an idea that has always appealed to me. But David gave a better reply: "As for me, I will take refuge in the Lord" (11:1). 

 

Some happy souls find it easy to take refuge in the Lord. Others struggle with a faith that flickers dimly, or not all. Some are so damaged by violence and abuse they find it hard to trust anyone, even the God who loves them beyond measure. 

 

But all of us, no matter how broken, can take our hearts to Jesus and ask him to help us believe. “I believe; help my unbelief,” is the sceptic’s prayer  (Mark 9:24). 

 

Paul writes, “For by grace are you saved through faith, and that (faith) not of ourselves. It (faith) is a gift of God...” (Ephesians 2:8.9). Faith isn’t something we can conjure into being. It’s a gift we have to ask for again and again.

 

Like every other virtue, faith falls from above. 

 

David Roper

8.15.20

Elective Process and the Providence of God

 

“There’s a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ’tis not to come. If it be not to come, it will be now. If it be not now, yet it will come.” —Hamlet

 

It was Mark twain, I think, who said he didn’t vote because it only encouraged the politicians. That’s a very shortsighted, if humorous point of view, especially in a nation in which we have free elections and can, in this way, seek the good of our country, a responsibility incumbent on us all. 

 

But we should understand that our vote Is a second cause. The first cause is God. “He puts down one (ruler), and exalts another,” he determines who sits on the throne, or occupies the White House (Psalm 75:6,7). He said to the Pharaoh of Egypt, “Indeed for this purpose (to effect the Exodus) I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth” (Exodus 9:16), a verse Paul quotes with approval as a demonstration of the providence of God (Romans 9:17). 

 

The Assyrian king, Tiglath-pileser (Isaiah 10:6, 7), the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar (Jeremiah25;9), the Persian kings, Cyrus the Great (Isaiah 48:14,15) and Artaxerxes (Ezra 7:21) are other examples of autocrats who, in pursuing their chosen careers, fulfilled the will of God. “The heart of the king is in the hand of the Lord” (Proverbs 21:1). The principle is still in play.

 

The Bible makes us look beyond secondary causes (e.g., elective process) to our sovereign Lord, the ultimate determinative factor. The Bible does not deny the efficacy of second causes, but it traces everything directly to the hand of God—even the election of unscrupulous, ungodly women and men. He has a purpose in it all.

 

Both “causes" are true: elective process and the providence of God. I can’t explain the paradox; the logic is beyond our ken. (The “’absurdity’ in it cuts us down to size,” a thoughtful friend of mine once said.) I can only say it is true. 

 

Preoccupation with secondary causes encourages us to fret and stew and spread our anxiety to others; focusing on the First Cause draws us to tranquility in the midst of chaos and confusion, what Paul called that “inexplicable peace of God” (Philippians 4:7).

 

Know well my soul, God's hand controls

whate'er you fear.

Round Him in calmest music rolls

whate'er you hear. —FB Meyer

 

David Roper

8.14.20

 Grumbling

Sheep may be cute and cuddly at a distance, but up close and personal they’re smelly, stupid, stubborn beasts. 

I came home one evening angry and muttering under my breath after spending a half-hour trying to untangle an old ewe from the brambles along our creek, bearing scratches and bruises where she had kicked me in her panic. I was not feeling like a good shepherd.

My father greeted my grumbling with a baleful look and a word of wisdom: "Do it, or don't do it, but don't complain.”

Paul broaches this subject in his first letter to the church in Corinth: "(Let us not) complain, as some of them also complained, and were destroyed by the destroyer" (1 Corinthians 10:10). 

Here he references the judgment of Korah and his kin who complained about Moses' leadership and were swallowed up in a gigantic earthquake (Numbers 16). The point? Complaining is serious sin. 

Complaining creates a toxic environment that poisons everyone and everything in the vicinity. It makes for an especially uncomfortable and inhospitable home. Samuel Johnson said, "To hear complaints is tiresome—to the miserable and the happy."

But more important, a complaining spirit demonstrates that I’m unwilling to accept God's "good, acceptable and perfect will.”  To grumble about my circumstances is to grumble against God and what he deems best for me. 

It’s much better to give thanks. 

David Roper

8.7.20

Guiltie of Dust and Sinne

“A second time the rooster crowed. Then Peter called to mind the word that Jesus had said to him, ‘Before the rooster crows twice, you will deny Me three times,’ And when he had  thrown it over, he wept” (Mark 14:72).

 

The Gospel of Mark, as you may know, is Peter’s Gospel, recorded by John Mark. For that reason it contains Petrine detail that other Gospels lack. 

 

One striking example is the text above. The last sentence reads, “and when he (Peter) had thrown it over, he wept.” Thrown what over?  Translators don’t seem to know what to do with that ungainly phrase.

 

The verb means exactly that: “to throw something out or over” and, according to one classical Greek source, is an idiom referring to someone throwing the hood of his cloak over his head. That being so, we’re given a vivid picture of Peter’s shame. Having denied his Lord three times, he pulled the hood of his cowl over his head and withdrew in self-contempt and humiliation. 

 

Ah, yes. How often have I, by thought, word or deed, denied my Lord and withdrawn in anguished guilt and shame. How often has Love drawn me out…

Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back,

               Guiltie of dust and sinne.

But quick-ey’d Love, observing me grow slack

               From my first entrance in,

Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,

               If I lack’d any thing.

 

A guest, I answer’d, worthy to be here:

               Love said, You shall be he.

I the unkinde, ungratefull?  Ah my deare,

               I cannot look on thee.

Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,

               Who made the eyes but I?

 

Truth Lord, but I have marr’d them: let my shame

               Go where it doth deserve.

And know you not, sayes Love, who bore the blame?

               My deare, then I will serve.

You must sit down, sayes Love, and taste my meat:

               So I did sit and eat.

—“Love III” by George Herbert (1633)

David Roper

8.2.20

Someone to Lean On

 

O LORD, be gracious to us;

We have waited for You.

Be their arm every morning,

Our salvation also in the time of trouble (Isaiah 33;2)

 

Judah was in trouble. Sennacherib, the Assyrian king, had agreed to accept ransom-money from Judah's King Hezekiah and break off his siege of the city of Jerusalem (2 Kings 18:13–18). But Sennacherib double-crossed Hezekiah, took the money and pressed on with the siege. 

 

Not to worry, Isaiah assured Hezekiah. Sennacherib would get his comeuppance in due time (Isaiah 3:1). In the meantime, all Hezekiah and the nation could was shelter in place and “wait” on the Lord, a word that combines the tension of waiting with an attitude of hope and  expectancy. 

 

The interesting thing about this text is the unexpected possessive pronoun in the third line: “be their arm.” You would expect “be our arm.” In fact some translators, spotting this anomaly, arbitrarily change the text to "our." 

 

But there's no need to alter the text. At this point Isaiah is slipping in a cameo prayer for his friends and neighbors: “Be their arm every morning.”

 

It seems to me that Isaiah’s prayer is a prayer I must pray for my friends and neighbors while we’re in this current “siege.” We all need someone to lean on. 

 

David Roper

7.31.20

Walk On

 

Daniel asked, the man clothed in linen:  “O my lord, when will earth’s troubles come to an end?” The answer was a set of cryptic numbers: “The end will come in 1290 days… but blessed is he who waits and arrives at the 1,335 days.” (Daniel 12:12)

 

Uh… Say what?

 

Commentators have tried to make sense of these numbers for 2500 years or more, in general taking them to refer to the last days of the Greek king, Antiochus IV who, in a fit of pique desecrated the temple in Jerusalem by sacrificing a pig on the altar and burning the sacred scrolls. They try to fit the “days” into the period between this desecration (the so-called, “Abominable Desolation”) and the rededication of the temple under the Maccabees, which some interpret as the “end.” 

 

Other interpreters envision a time yet future and place these days in a period designated as the Great Tribulation.

 

Perhaps someday we’ll uncover other data that will enable us to work within these numerical parameters, though the man later informed Daniel that “the words are shut up and sealed until the time of the end” (12:9). Perhaps we are not to know what these “days” mean until they’re upon us.  

 

In the meantime, while the experts work out the problems of this text, can we not see here an admonition to endure hardship joyfully, confidently, hopefully for days and days and then for a few days more. 

 

In that spirit, then, there’s a word for old Daniel...and for you and me: “Walk on and on and on till the end. And 

 

“Those who are wise will understand” (Daniel 12:8).

 

Up-Hill

 

Does the road wind up-hill all the way? 

Yes, to the very end. 

Will the day’s journey take the whole long day? 

From morn to night, my friend. 

 

But is there for the night a resting-place? 

A roof for when the slow dark hours begin. 

May not the darkness hide it from my face? 

You cannot miss that inn. 

 

Shall I meet other wayfarers at night? 

Those who have gone before. 

Then must I knock, or call when just in sight? 

They will not keep you standing at that door. 

 

Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak? 

Of labor you shall find the sum. 

Will there be beds for me and all who seek? 

Yea, and rest for all who come.  —Christine Rossetti

 

David Roper

17.27.20