"What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee. 4. In God I will praise His word, in God, I have put my trust; I will not fear what man can do to me.” (verses 3-4)
“In God will I praise His word: in the Lord will I praise His word. 11. In God have I put my trust: I will not be afraid of what man can do unto me.” (verses 10-11) It is worth noting that David did not claim to be fearless. We usually think of him as the “fearless warrior” who took on the giant Goliath when he was very young. But in this psalm, he simply states “what time I am afraid…” This means that David had to face his fears, just like we have to face our fears. Fear is an integral part of life, and we have to deal with it. We can fear the weather, especially when we see what hurricanes and tornadoes can do. We can fear for the future, especially when we think of what might happen, and in the case of those of us who are older, we fear for the future for our children and grandchildren. Come to think of it, there is a lot to be afraid of, but David is going to teach us in these verses how to deal with whatever fears we have to face. David could face his fears because he trusted in God. He made the bold assertion, “What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee.” We are saved from sin by trusting in Jesus as our Savior, but we are sustained in life by that same trust. We need to remember that God is always with us, and when we face trying and fearful times, He is with us. He illustrated this in Psalm 23:4: “Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.” We need to realize that no matter what we face, whether it is sickness, nature’s wrath, or people, God is with us and will see us through whatever it is that we have to face. I don’t know what you are dealing with at the present time that would make you afraid, but I do know that God is aware of it and will be with you through all of it. Many times He will deliver you from whatever it is that you fear, but at other times, He will deliver you through whatever it is that you fear. FDR was right when he told the citizens of our country as we faced a world war, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” Fear will ruin our lives if we will let it. It will cripple us in our creativity and in our relationships with people if we give in to it. I remember back in 1969 when we were thinking about cutting loose from the security of a good church and school teaching job and going to the seminary. We simply had to face it in faith and do it, because God willed it. I am glad that we knew that He would be with us. Whatever you are afraid of now, release into the powerful hands of God. David referred to another thing that helped him in his fear – God’s word. In verse 4 he wrote: “In God I will praise His word…” Again in verse 10 he wrote: “In God will I praise His word…” Of course, David’s word from God was the Pentateuch, which recorded what God did for His people Israel. In our case, we have the whole Old Testament and New Testament. We know the complete story of salvation history. What a comfort it is to know that when we are afraid, we have the Bible that we can turn to that will reassure us of the presence of God. There is power in the word of God that can help us transcend our earthly fears. There have been many times in my life when I rushed to the word of God for comfort in trying times. There have also been many times when I would have been better off if I had rushed to the word of God. No doubt, you have a Bible. Read it and let its inspired passages remind you of the love of God for you and the power of God in your life. Don’t be upset that there are things that make you afraid; just be glad that you have God and His word to lean on when you are afraid. Bro. Joe
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"Arise, shine, for thy light has come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. 2. For, behold the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and His glory shall come to thy light and His glory shall be seen upon thee. 3. And the Gentles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising."
This text is a promise to the Israelites that their influence would come to the gentiles. I saw in it a promise that is not only for the Israelites, but a promise for us as well. I want to focus on the phrase and "His glory shall be seen upon thee," People need to see the glory of the God's people. This is a true now as it was when Isaiah wrote it. How can people glorify God as a witness to the world. The first thing that comes to my mind is that people can see God's glory in our praise of Him. This is why public worship is so important. When we sing and pray aloud, we show the glory of God. Do you really and truly praise God in public worship as well as in private worship. We even show God's glory by our demeanor in worship. Do you really praise God when you sing, pray and study the Bible? The next thing that comes to my mind is that we glorify God by our good works. We are not saved by our works, but we witness by our works. We should just do good things because that is the right thing to do as the people of God. Our good works will be seen by people and our public profession of faith in Jesus will be real to them. When they see us serving Christ by our works, people will see His influence in our lives, and will likely want His influence in their lives. When you do good works, see them as instruments of praise to Christ. The next thing that comes to my mind is bearing fruit will glorify God. In John 15:8, Jesus said: "Herein is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit, so shall you be my disciples." We bear fruit, of course, when we bring people to Christ, but we also bear fruit by positive, loving, relationships with people. If you are bearing ill will toward someone in your family, church or work, you are not glorifying God. We need to remember that God loves the people that we do not love, and He wants us to also love them. Of course, there are many other ways that we can glorify God than have been mentioned here, but these points would give us a good start in glorifying God. Bro. Joe “I have preached righteousness in the great congregation: lo I have not refrained my lips, Lord thou knowest. 10. I have not hid thy righteousness within my heart; I have declared thy faithfulness and thy salvation: I have not concealed thy lovingkindness and thy truth from the great congregation.”
If you ask a lot of people about their religious beliefs, they will tell you that they are not going to talk about that because it is personal. There is an idea today that what one believes is his business and no one else’s. This might be true of some religions but it is certainly not true of the Christian faith. We are not supposed to hide the light that Christ has put within us and allows to shine out of us. The whole world needs to know. David certainly did not hide his faith in the Father. He wrote that he had “preached righteousness to the great congregation.” He declared that he would not “refrain (his) lips.” In other words, he was willing to talk about what God was doing in his life. He did not hide God’s righteousness in his heart. He was willing to share God’s righteousness. David was willing to declare the faithfulness of God. We can certainly do that, because we know of God’s faithfulness to send His Son to die for our sins. David did not conceal God’s lovingkindness. Why would he and why would we? We should gladly proclaim that our God is a loving God who will always love us. David also did not conceal God’s truth from the “great congregation.” We certainly should not be ashamed of God’s truth as revealed through Jesus Christ. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life…” Why would we conceal this great truth from the world? Throughout the Bible, especially the New Testament, we are told to go and tell other people about what Jesus has done for us. This does not mean that we are to push our religious beliefs down people’s throats. We can’t do that anyway. It means that we are to unashamedly live for Jesus and speak to others about Him, and we are to do it lovingly. Why would we hide our faith from other people? First, I think some people might hide their faith because they are afraid of being thought of as uncool. This is how the world looks at Christian people today. Another word that comes to mind is that we are afraid of being called “ignoramuses.” By a large part of the population, we are viewed as a bunch of ignorant, uneducated people who have no idea about what life is all about. C.S. Lewis, a brilliant British professor, would have taken issue with that. Hey, I’m not without education myself. (If I act like an ignoramus from time to time that is not because of my faith. Lol) Second, I think that some people might hide their faith because they are ashamed. This was not unheard of in the Bible. When Paul was considering going to the sophisticated, urbane, pagan city of Rome, he made it clear that he was not ashamed of the gospel and told them why. Romans 1:16: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.” It is still the “power of God unto salvation,” that is intended for all who will believe in Jesus Christ. We should not be ashamed that we have given our lives to One who makes our lives deeper and better. We should not be ashamed that we love the One who first loved us. We don’t need to wear our faith on our sleeves and be defensive about it, but we should unashamedly live it before others, and when God leads us to speak out for Him we should. So, what are you hiding? Bro. Joe "Do all things without murmuring and disputing: 15. That you may be blameless and harmless the sons of God, without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom you shine as lights of the world. 16. Holding forth the word of life that I may rejoice that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither labored in vain."
Our text is advice that Paul gave to the Philippian Church. It was good advice for them, and because of the transmission of scripture it is good advice for us. First, we are advised to "do all things without murmuring and disputing." We need to stop complaining. A church is not operating at its best when people are complaining. This is one of the devil's best tools that he uses to reduce the productivity of a church. Often, when a church is winning souls and the members are serving productively, the devil will tempt people to start complaining about the way things are going. The devil is the main enemy of the church and if he can get the people to start complaining about one thing or the other, the production of the church is brought to a halt. If you feel the need to complain: DO NOT DO IT! Second, we are to let the light of Christ shine through our lives: "That you may be harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom you shine as lights in the world." In Matthew 5:14 and 16 Jesus said: "You are the light of the world, city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. 16. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." When the world is dark, we are to shine the light of Christ into that darkness. You need to ask yourself whether or not you are shining the light of Christ, or if you are adding to the darkness by your demeanor and behavior. If you want to shine as the light of the Christ----stop complaining. Third, when we shine as lights for Christ, we are "holding forth the word of life..." There was some complaining and enmity occurring in the church at Philippi. Read Philippians 4:2-3 where Paul referred to two women who were leaders in the church, and were having difficulty with each other. Their lights were not shining, and Paul wanted their fellow church members to help them shine as lights, and stop dimming the light of the church with their disagreement. We need to ask ourselves if we are "holding forth the word of life," or are we dimming the light of "the word of life." In short, here is the advice that we have here in the text printed above: We need to refrain from complaining and allow the light of Christ to be seen in our lives. Selah Bro. Joe "My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth."
This little verse nestled in 1John 3:18, gives us a lesson in love. I will actually call it a "common sense" adaptation of Christian love. We could really turn the world upside down if we would learn from, and adopt, this "love" lesson. It tells us not to think when we merely say "I love" is not sufficiently sharing God's love with the world. What John realized, and what we should realize, is that it is easy to express our love verbally. The love that John is dealing with in this text is the Greek word "Agapay." This is the word for love that is used in John 3:16, and in other places to express God's love. It is the height of hypocrisy to tell people that we love them when we really don't love them. In fact, when we use the word "love" lightly and hypocritically, we are actually lying. In other words, we are sinning. It is certainly not wrong to express our love verbally when we actually really mean it. We actually express our love best when we act on it. That is one lesson that Jesus was teaching in the Parable of the Good Samaritan. The Samaritan did not stop on the road by the suffering man and say "I love you man, but I can't do anything for you." Instead the Samaritan showed his love by actually stopping and helping the man. (You can read about it in Luke 10:30-37.) The Samaritan did what John wrote about in in our text, he did not verbally declare his love for the suffering man, but he showed that love by his deed of help. We do not read in the text that the Samaritan said "I love you," but we see that love in his actions. I am not relating that active love is always easy, but it is always Christlike. Perhaps the key word in the text is the word "truth." If our words "I love you" are not backed by truth, they are meaningless. We will do well to remember that when we tell God that we love Him, we should really mean it. When we tell other people that we love them, we should really mean it. And if we want to visibly express that love, we should express it "in deed and in truth." Bro. Joe "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life."
I love to read this text and add my name to "whosever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." Read the text and add your name to "whosever." I do not think that this takes away the meaning of the text. The text is a missionary text, which is good news for the world, but it is also personal good news for anyone who reads it. If it has never occurred to you Jesus loves you, you need to catch the real meaning of this text. You cannot run away from the fact that Jesus loves you. Jesus does love the whole world, but He also loves the individuals in the world. But what is most important for you is that Jesus loves you. You might wonder why Jesus can love you because of certain things that you have done. Think of all of the things that the great apostle Paul did before he was approached by Jesus on the Damascus Road. Paul was intending to persecute Christ's people as he traveled on the Damascus Road, but that encounter with Jesus changed Paul's life. Jesus loved Paul in spite of all that Paul had done to destroy His church. Jesus' love is realized when we know that He died on the cross to save us. When I was ten years old I joined the church because I realized that Jesus loved me, and that I should join the church as a testimony of what Jesus had done for me. That was a real experience for me, but the reality of it hit me when I was twenty years old and in the last few months of my enlistment in the Navy. This doesn't mean that what I did when I was ten years old was not sincere, but that the ultimate reality of it hit me ten years later. It was at this time that I realized that I was not just saved, but that Jesus wanted me to serve Him in the ministry. That idea had been with me for a long time, but my life did not show that for a long time. I am glad that Jesus is a forgiving Savior and that He never leaves us alone until we surrender to Him. I don't know what you are dealing with in your life at this present time, but I know that Jesus wants to be a part of it. It will be to your advantage if you will invite Jesus into your plans for your life. I know that is what happened in my life. I wasted a lot of time in my life running away from what God was trying to do in my life. One thing I learned about God is that He will not leave you alone until you find your life in Him. In my case, the Lord wanted me to be a preacher. I don't why in the world the Lord wanted me to preach His gospel. My life at that , time was a long way from being a Christian minister, but the Lord will not leave you alone until you find His will for your life. One time a man asked a preacher why he, of all people, was in the ministry. His reply was: "I just kept running until God caught me." I don't know what it is that God wants with your life, but you need to stop running and let God catch you and show you what it is that He wants with your life. That doesn't mean when He catches you, He will want you to be a preacher. He mainly wants your life, and He will help you know what He wants for you. Selah Bro. Joe He (Jesus) was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. 11. He came unto His own, and the world knew Him not. 12. But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His Name.”
This is one of those texts that we read, and the power and majesty might escape us. I want to attempt to bring out the majesty and power of it in this article. The majesty of it was that Jesus, the Son of God, was in the world. In the first three verses of his gospel, John points out who this person is: He is the eternal Son of God who came into the world to save the world from its greatest problem - sin. Look around you and you see the harvest of sin in the world. We might even look into our own hearts and lives and see how sinister and destructive sin is. Jesus was in the world, and is still at work in the world, for the same purpose of saving people from sin. Don’t let this go over your head. Grasp it and see the majesty of it. The tragedy was, and is, that “the world knew Him not…” The world that Jesus created rejected Him. How sad these words are: “knew Him not.” This is still true. Most people do not see the majesty because they are blinded to what sin is doing to their lives. Many, maybe most, of them are not what we would call “bad” people. They just do not see a need for the One who came into the world to save them. You might be one of those people. Do not reject the One who can give you eternal life. You need to be able to say that He who was in the world, is in my life. Which brings us to the power: “But as many as received Him to them gave He power to become the sons (or children) of God.” How? The answer is: “Even to them that believe on His Name.” Trust Jesus today, and He will give you the power, the right, the authority, to become a child of God. If you are a believer, thank and worship Jesus, and thank Him that He saved you from your sins. I hope and pray that I have shone the light of Jesus on this text, and that you will rejoice that it is still true, that by believing in Jesus, people can become children of God. Bro. Joe “Then said Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan; for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve.”
You probably recognize that this verse is centered in Jesus’ temptation by Satan after JESUS had fasted for forty days and forty nights. Satan was trying to get Jesus to worship him, but Jesus made it plain to Satan that people are to worship God and God alone. ("Worship" and "serve" are closely related in the Bible.) We read about worship throughout the Bible. Worship is important for it takes place when we center and focus our minds and hearts on the Lord. We are to worship privately and publically. Worship is as necessary to the Christian as eating and drinking. That answers why we worship, now we need to look at how we worship. We worship God through prayer. Prayer itself is an act of worship. When we pray we concentrate our hearts and minds on God, either in petition or meditation. Petition and meditation are important parts of worship. In petitioning God we are confessing to Him that we know that all of the things that we need in this life come from Him. In meditating we focus our minds and hearts on God and just let Him speak to our hearts. Worshipful prayer is a two-way communication: God hears us when we pray and we hear His “still small voice” while we concentrate fully on Him. Prayer is a great act of worship for it verifies that we know that we are wholly dependent on God in all of life. We worship God through singing. Paul wrote about this in Ephesians 5:18-19: “And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit. 19. Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.” We come together to worship in fellowship with fellow Christians and a large part of our worship together is singing. We do not sing to show off our talents, or to merely make merry in song. We sing to worship the Lord. The words of hymns can help us to focus our minds on God. Many of our hymns remind us of what Jesus did for us at Calvary, and we worship Him in the process. When the choir sings, we are not to just listen to the beauty of the music, but we are to see the beauty of the Lord. But we do not worship in song only in fellowship with other Christians. There are times when I sing some of the hymns that I know by heart in my private worship. The familiar words of the hymns help me to focus on the Lord. I have found that I can concentrate on what God is saying to my heart when I am “making melody in my heart and soul to the Lord.” There are many new songs that are being sung today called “praise hymns.” They also have a message about the Lord and lift up praise to Christ Jesus. We worship God through the preaching of His word. In most non-Catholic churches, the pulpit stand is in the center of the pulpit area. This is simply a symbol that God’s word and the preaching of it is the central act of worship. Whether the pulpit is in the center or not, preaching is still the central act of worship. That is why we are to listen reverently while the preacher is preaching. The preacher is sharing a portion of God’s word and applying it to life. While the preaching is going on, the Holy Spirit is at work in the minds and hearts of the preacher and the people. When I preach, I sometimes remind the congregation that what I am saying is important. It is not important because I’m saying it, but because it is what God has given to me to share with them on that day. The “preaching moment” is an act of worship by the preacher and the congregation. There is certainly more to worship than I have written here, but the three things that I wrote about are familiar to us and need to be recognized as part of our worship. Bro. Joe “Call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.” As surely as we live there will be a “day of trouble.” This text gives us one solemn promise and three solemn promises pertaining to the day of trouble. The Lord wants us to be aware of all of life’s exigencies and of His availability in them. Let’s see what the text promises.
First, there is always the prospect of trouble. No one lives a trouble-free life. We will always face troubles of some kind. This is not a lovely prospect and seems negative in outlook, but is, nevertheless, true. There can be personal troubles that cause us to be depressed. There can be family troubles that can cause us great distress. There can be troubles at work that make our jobs more stressful. There can be troubling people who come in and out of our lives, causing us to have a problem loving people. (You could probably name some right now. lol [maybe]) Someone has written that “life is alternate shade and sunshine.” This is true. It would be nice if trouble warned us before it came, but it seldom does. We could handle trouble better if we could always anticipate it. We just need to be aware that we will have to face troubles of all kinds in this world. What can we do about these inevitable troubles? We usually try to handle them ourselves based on our own expertise. When we do this we usually get into deeper and deeper trouble. The Lord gives us the answer. Second, there is always the privilege of prayer. In the text written above, the Lord said “call upon me in the day of trouble.” Jesus said, “Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy-laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30) When we belong to Jesus, He is never out of range for us. I once read that, “The Lord is in hearing distance all of the time.” This is true, though in the midst of trouble we sometimes forget it. The hymn is true that tells us: “O, what peace we often forfeit, O, what needless pain we bear, all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer.” We need to pay attention to those words that we sing without really thinking about what they mean. In 1 Thessalonians 5:17, Paul reminded us to “pray without ceasing.” In Luke 18:1 we read: “And (Jesus) spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray and not to faint.” We need to memorize and remember passages like these to remind us of our need to pray. They will also remind us of the power of prayer in our lives. No one can take the privilege of prayer from us. Third, there is always a promise of deliverance. “Call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee.” He did not say, “I might deliver thee.” His deliverance is certain. There are at least two ways that the Lord delivers us in the day of trouble: (1) He delivers us from the trouble. (2) He delivers us through the troubles. Either way we are delivered. Fourth, there should always be praise for the Lord when He delivers us: “I will deliver thee and thou shalt glorify me.” In this way, we give credit to the Lord for our deliverance. We cannot deliver ourselves without the Lord’s help. We need to remember that though we will face troubles in this life, we are not alone in facing them. Take God at His word and call upon Him. He will deliver you, and when He does praise Him. Believe it and practice it. Bro. Joe “As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed begged to go with Him. 19. Jesus did not let him, but said, ‘Go home to your family and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how much He has had mercy on you. 20. So the man went away and began to tell in Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him. And all the people were amazed.”
I am assuming that you know something about the incident that took place between Jesus and the Gadarene demoniac. I will share a little background that led up to the three verses of our text. Jesus was in a place called Gadara, where He saw a man literally running around necked among the tombs. He was possessed by at least one-thousand demons. Obviously the man was a social outcast. In fact, he was dangerous. The gist of the incident is that Jesus cast the demons out of the man and he was immediately sane. This incident tells us some things about Jesus that we need to know Jesus saw the man and immediately went to him in order to help him. Keep in mind that everyone else passed by the demon-possessed man . Let’s not be too hard on them, because the man was dangerous. The point is that the man whom everyone else shunned, ignored or simply ran away from was loved by Jesus, and Jesus did something to change him. This is how Jesus was in His earthly life, and this is how He is today as He reaches out to us from the right hand of the throne of the Father. Jesus is intensely interested in every aspect of our lives, and He will not pass by us. When we reach out to Jesus, we find Him reaching out to us. When we call out to Jesus, we find that He is ready to hear us and to help us. We are His representatives on earth, and we are to love people as He did. We need to love the “down and out” as much as we do the “up and in.” Through Faith in Jesus, we can have a lot of good things happen in our lives, and through that same faith, we can help other people to have good things happen in their lives. I’m not suggesting that you go out looking demoniacs, I am telling you to love people enough to reach out to them with your faith and love. Jesus knew what the man’s problem was before He encountered him. He did not go to the tombs by accident. In the first place, a naked man running around among the tombs would be well-known. That is not to say that the man was popular, but he would have inevitably been well-known. In fact, if you will read the text, you will find the demons that possessed the man knew who Jesus was. They knew what Jesus could do and begged Jesus not to send them into the abyss (the pit of hell) but into the pigs that were nearby. The point is that the problem that the man had was demon-possession and Jesus rid him of the demons. Jesus will do the same in our lives. Whatever our besetting sins and problems are, Jesus knows about them and He can rid of us them. We must want to be as tired of our besetting sins as much as the demoniac must have wanted to get rid of the demons. We do not have one problem, whether caused by sin or not, that Jesus does not know about and that He cannot help is with. We need to surrender to Jesus and reach out to Him in faith. Jesus did not heal the man of his demons and then just walk off and leave him. Instead, Jesus gave the man a challenge. The demoniac wanted to become a follower of Jesus, but Jesus had another plan for his life. Jesus told him to go home and tell the people who had known him as a demoniac about what Jesus had done for him. He did this and the people were in wonder over what Jesus did for the man. Just as Jesus did for the demoniac, He will do for us. He will give us a greater purpose than we have ever known. He wants us to go out and tell people about what He has done for us. It is quite possible that people will be in wonder over what Jesus has done for you. Keep this in mind: Jesus has a purpose for your life. Put your faith in Jesus, release yourself to His will, and see what He will use you to do. The same Jesus that we saw in this text is alive and at work today. I pray that Jesus is alive and at work in your life. Bro. Joe |
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