Out of the Mouth of Babes

Psalm 8

“Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established a defense against your foes, to silence the enemy and the rebel" (Psalm 8:2). 

Here’s an intriguing apologetic: The proof of God's greatness lies in the fact that a little child can know Him. Their love and trust is the answer to those who doubt Him, an argument Jesus used on one occasion.

When the chief priests and the teachers of the law saw children running and singing praise songs in the sacred temple precincts, they were scandalized. “Do you hear what these children are saying?” they asked him. “Yes,” replied Jesus, quoting this psalm. “Have you never read, 'From the lips of children and infants you, Lord, call forth praise’?” (Matthew 21:16).

These little ones were scampering through the temple, shouting “Hosanna (Aramaic for ‘Save, I pray!’) as they danced and sang around Jesus. (Perhaps these were the little street urchins that often  gathered around his knees.) These children knew, as Israel’s wise and learned men did not know—for they did not have the wisdom of a child—that Jesus was the long-awaited Savior. Their playful and exuberant faith was God's argument against the unbelief and skepticism of his day. 

That's why it’s a serious sin to hinder the faith of one of these little ones “who believe on him” as Jesus said. “It would be better for that one that a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin” (Luke17:1,2).

I think of college professors and public school teachers that undermine the faith of those in their care, and parents that hinder their little ones through indifference. 

And then I think of myself: Have I, by my behavior, belied the fact that I’m a follower of Jesus and caused them to stumble? (Where does one find a millstone these days?)

David Roper

 10.22.19

The Law of Inevitable Consequence

Psalm 7

He digs a pit, digging it deeper,

and falls into the hole he has dug. —Psalm 7:15

Does God care that tyranny and injustice exist? Indeed, ”God is outraged every day" (7:11). And he will judge, not with immediate acts of judgment, like Thor with his hammer, but by allowing evil-doers to receive the natural consequences of their misdeeds. 

Ancient wisdom enshrined that principle: “Violence and injury enclose in their net all that do such things, and return upon him who began” (First Century B.C. Roman poet and philosopher, Lucretius). Israel’s poet/prophet David knew the principle long before Lucretius: “(The evildoer) digs a pit and keeps digging, and falls into the hole he has dug.” This is the hard logic of sin: We get what’s coming to us; we reap what we sow.

But God’s judgment is not only punitive; it is also redemptive. It falls on us to bring us to repentance. Thus there is hope for all of us, even me and my own petty tyranny. There is Someone to whom I can say, “I’m sorry; please forgive me” (7:12). And find forgiveness for all my sins (Psalm 130:4). 

David Roper

10.20.19

Terrified

Psalm 6

"I'm terrified. LORD (6:3).

"I am greatly terrified" (6:4).

"All my enemies shall be...terrified" (6:10).

David enemies were spreading malicious lies about him, blackening his name. Terrified, emotionally drained, David, a hard man, a man's man, was reduced to tears: "Every night I flood my bed with tears; I drench my couch with my weeping" (6:6).

But David tears turned to prayer, his recourse when under duress—a far better and safer thing than defending himself.

Assurance grew out of David's prayers: His adversaries would themselves be "terrified" (6:10). God would deal with them in due time. 

How did David know this? Because God loved him (6:4). And love longs to shelter. 

So, let people chatter. Our Father in Heaven hears their prattle and he will have the last word.

But we need to be patient for he almost always takes His time (6:3).

David Roper

10.14.19

A Primer on Prayer

Psalm 5

Give ear to my words, O Lord;

consider my groaning.

Give attention to the sound of my cry,

my King and my God, for to you do I pray.

O Lord, in the morning you hear my voice;

in the morning I prepare a sacrifice for you and watch.

—Psalms 5:1-3

As children, when taunted, we shouted in reply: “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me." Nothing could be further from the truth. Words wound us deeply and irreparably. 

A case in point is David's reprisal. It wasn’t sticks, or stones, swords, or spears that pierced his heart. It was words. (Odd, isn’t it, that in David's world, in which there was so much physical violence, words could have so much potency.)

By answering his critics David, gives us an answer to ours, and also, unwittingly, a primer on prayer. 

At first, David admits, his anxious cries were nothing more than groans and barely audible sighs. but there was a growing clarity as his groaning developed into disciplined and expectant prayer. (The verb "I prepare [a sacrifice]" is the word David uses in Psalm 23—"You prepare a table before me"—and suggests that David laid out his words in an orderly fashion.)

My prayers, at first, can be nothing more that a bare wish, an anxious reaction, a ragged cry of despair, an anguished groan. "Groans are quick, and full of wings; and all their motions upward be,” George Herbert said. 

God takes it from there: His Spirit reads my aching cries and turns them into proper prayer. He “considers” (makes sense of) my groaning.

My prayer-bird was cold—would not away, 

Although I set it on the edge of the nest. 

Then I bethought me of the story old—

Love-fact or loving fable, thou know'st best—

How, when the children had made sparrows of clay, 

Thou mad'st them birds, with wings to flutter and fold: 

Take, Lord, my prayer in thy hand, and make it pray. 

—George MacDonald

David Roper

Better Than Wine

Psalm 4

"Know that the Lord has set apart the godly for Himself” (4:3).

David adversaries were talking smack: innuendo, invectives and lies. David’s sense of self–worth and well-being plummeted (4:1,2).

Then David reminded himself, "The Lord has set apart the godly for himself”(4:3).

"Godly" sounds austere and unattainable, but the translation is misleading. It's the Hebrew word hasidim, based on the word for God's covenant love, hasid. I render it, "those who love God and whom God will love forever." 

It’s almost impossible for me to get through the day without being snubbed, ignored, or put down in some way. Sometimes I do it to myself. 

But here's what I must remember: I'm loved forever and ever, set apart in a very special way; as dear to God as his own beloved Son. Why else would He have called me into existence to be His child for all eternity? 

So, instead of beating myself up, or pumping myself up, I need to remind myself moment by moment that I am His dearly beloved child. He will never, never, never, never give up on me.

The outcome is elation and celebration. His love, thus, ”is better than wine!" (4:7).

David Roper

10.9.19

Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep

Psalm 3

I cried out loud to the Lord,

And He heard me from His holy hill.

I lay down and slept;

I awoke, for the Lord gave rest (Psalm 3:4).

Conscience shakes me awake in the middle of the night. I think of things done and undone. I toss and turn.  

David understood. He had a lot on his conscience and his enemies made the most of it. 

Unlike David, my enemies are not Hittites, Amorites, or the members of my own family, but the enemies of my soul, Satan and his band of busy accusers: ”Your sins are many; not even God can help you" (3:1,2).

David, on his part, though conscience-plagued, cried out to the LORD, “and the Lord heard (him).”

We’re not told what God said. It’s only important to know that David could turn to his Father in his guilt and shame, and that his Father heard him.

Amazing grace!

David Roper

10.5.19

The Last Laugh 

Psalm 2

The kings of the earth set themselves,

and the rulers take counsel together,

against the Lord and against his Anointed (Christ) …

He who sits in the heavens laughs! —Psalm 2:2-4

“The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated,” Mark Twain quipped upon hearing that his obituary had been published in the New York Journal. I would say the same to those who report the death of the Church. G. K. Chesterton said, that “at least five times…the Church has to all appearance gone to the dogs. In each of these five cases it was the dog that died” (The Everlasting Man).

I read somewhere, though the details elude me, that the Roman emperor Diocletian raised a monument to himself on which he placed an inscription stating that he had “abolished the superstition of Christ." Some years later Diocletian abdicated, discouraged by the sad state of affairs in the empire and committed suicide. Rome fell to the Goths shortly thereafter. The Church exists and thrives today in every corner of the world. “The gates of hell (Hell’s best-laid counsels, schemes and strategies) shall not prevail against it,” Jesus said.  

Peter Waldo, an early reformer, represented the history of Christianity with a picture of an anvil with a number of worn-out hammers lying around it. At the bottom of the picture there was a quote from 16^th century French theologian Theadore Beza: “The Church is an anvil that has worn out many hammers.”

“The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against his Anointed (Christ)…” 

And peals of laughter rend the skies!

David Roper

10.3.19