Month: January 2018

235. Reap Joy

 Psalm 126:5, 6

They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.

He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed,

Shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.

 Reaping and Sowing is an underlying theme for many Scripture principles and promises. The principle is simple and clear: “You will reap what you sow.” That is an observable fact that goes without saying; everyone knows that. If you sow seeds you will reap sheaves; clear enough. If you sow in tears you will reap in joy: not so clear. The cause and effect relationship of sowing in tears and reaping in joy would never be seen naturally, so it must be revealed to us in His Word of promise; the promise must be believed.

The first problem we have is seeing the connection between cause and effect. The second problem we have is that we do not realize that many words and actions are “sowing.” We do not see that our sins actually “sow” and thus we reap terrible consequences; then we wonder why things are not well with my soul and in my family and social relationships. So also we do not see that our good works of giving and loving reap blessed consequences; if we could see the “sowing and reaping” more clearly we would selfishly do so many more good works since it brings blessing.

We may go into the field to sow with tears and weeping: farming is hard work and we don’t get immediate gratification. Much of life is like that: living in relationships with other selfish sinners is actually very difficult, forgiveness doesn’t come easily, unselfish serving takes conscious effort, giving feels like losing, controlling anger isn’t so easy. Sowing is hard, but it is made easier when we believe the promise that reaping a harvest in joy will follow (“come again with rejoicing”). When we believe God’s principles and promises we are more apt to do the good works of love and service that result in joy later, not instantly.

Sow the Gospel into the soil of your own heart with tears of repentance; believe that Gospel as it is sown. Reap in joy the Gospel harvest of eternal life. Believe the seed and plant as much as you can in your own heart and in the lives of others. Then reap.

234. Round About

 Psalm 125:2

As the mountains are round about Jerusalem,

So the Lord is round about his people from henceforth even forever.

 Mountains surrounding a valley can be easily seen from the secure city. The invisible Lord surrounding His people cannot be seen from the secure place. For this reason the Word of God uses the visible as a metaphorical picture of the invisible. If we could only see the Lord round about us as clearly as we see the mountains round about us we would rest secure, feel safe, live without fear and never need to worry again. The Word implants faith in the spiritual, eternal things, which cannot be seen. We look to (trust in) the things that are unseen, for they are eternal.

Elisha asked the Lord to open the eyes of the servant so he could thousands of armed angels on the surrounding hillsides fighting for Israel. We also need to see by faith that there are more with us than with the enemies. Take heart; be encouraged.

Without the Word to tell us what is really happening we would have nothing to trust in, nothing to hope for, everything to fear and everything to doubt. With the Word we can have confidence, security, peace and calm, for we see what can’t be seen. Faith sees the Lord round about us forever.

God gives us promises like this because our vision and experience is limited to the physical and material world. By faith we take hold of a promise like this and start to imagine what it is really like to have the Lord round about us from now on and forever. Imagine! See! Picture! Believe!

233. Abide Forever

 Psalm 125:1

They that trust in the Lord shall be as mount Zion,

Which cannot be removed, but abideth forever.

If you trust in the Lord, then you cannot be removed, but you will abide forever. The solidity, stability and permanence of being positioned in a place and not moved from that spot is very important for our emotional wellbeing and mental confidence. This security sustains us in all times of uncertainty. We have nothing to fear for He is with us. Earthquakes and floods could not remove us from our position. No place is more secure than being in Christ.

This truster will abide, dwell with God, and live forever. Abide means to remain, stay, and dwell in the same place. We abide in Christ by faith in Him. He abides with us, dwelling in the heart and staying there. He lives forever and shares His life with us so we also live and abide forever. And nothing can remove that life from us. Neither Sin nor Death nor the Devil shake our standing with God, ever.

232. Help

 Psalm 124:8

Our help is in the name of the Lord,

Who made heaven and earth.

 God promises help many times in the Psalms, demonstrates help in the Scriptures, and seals that help to us in the NT. He promises to hear our prayers and give the help we need when we ask. He promises to help us at all times of need even when we do not ask for it. God is a Helper: it’s who He is, its what He does; and He helps with any kind of help for every kind of necessity.

The help God gives is in the name of the Lord, by the power, presence, and personality of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus told us to pray in His name, and so we pray in the name of Jesus, standing in His spot in front of Almighty God the Father. “In the name of Jesus” is not a formula to use in prayer but an attitude and spirit of faith in the promises of God in Christ. We come to God, we have access to God, and we approach God always and only through Jesus Christ, His Son, our Lord. Our help is in the name of Jesus.

The One who has authority and ability to help us with anything and everything is the very One who made heaven and earth, the Almighty Creator of the universe. There is no question in our minds whether He is able to answer our prayers and meet our needs and help us even is a miracle is necessary. He can do it. Then the question may arise: Will He do it? Does He want to help? Yes, I know He will help me because He promised that He would be my help. And God must keep His promises. He is waiting for us to say, “Help me, Lord!”

231. Prosper

 Psalm 122:6

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem:

They shall prosper that love thee.

 This is a conditional promise: If you pray for the peace of the people of God and love the church then you will prosper. The interesting condition for prosperity is prayer for and love for the church. For New Testament believers in Christ Jerusalem is a metaphor for the Church, invisible in the hearts of believers but made visible when they gather in Jesus’ name. Jerusalem is the visible local people of God coming together in the name of Jesus around Word and Sacrament. (All of those gathered may not be true believers from the invisible church, but generally most of them will be.) Just as Jerusalem is a visible place where the people gather in the OT, so Jerusalem is fitting as a picture of the visible Church in the NT.

We do not always see the material prosperity of those who love the Church, but those who love the Church and pray for it will prosper mentally, emotionally, spiritually, relationally, and socially. God has blessed us with all His riches in glory in Christ Jesus. No one prospers more than the man or woman who enjoys the peace and joy of a blessed family and friends; and you will see this family in church often sharing the prosperity of the Gospel. They participate in the church, they pray for the church, they give to the church, and they love the church with its Lord and its people. Every local church will experience times of friction and turmoil, but this prosperous person will pray for the peace of the church; for he desires that the saving and blessing Gospel message he enjoys will be heard by many others.

230. Preserve

 Psalm 121:7, 8

The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil:

He shall preserve thy soul.

The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth,

And even forevermore.

 The Lord promises to preserve: keep, protect, guard, watch over, and keep safe are some synonyms; but preserve has the additional connotation of keeping something free from contamination or corruption, like preserves in a jar or preservatives in food packages. The Lord will preserve my soul from the contamination and corruption of sin and all evil. He will preserve my soul in the pure and innocent state which God made in me when He baptized me, when I was born again, when He forgave my sins, and when the Holy Spirit came to dwell in my spirit.

This promise seems impossible and incredible for experience does not see or feel such purity of soul. It keeps sinning and thereby allowing corruption to creep in, take over, and try to rule my mind and heart. Does God really preserve my soul? Well, yes, He does, because He says He does. He must tell us this in His Word of Truth so that we can believe it, for we could not believe it by the empirical evidence of our thoughts, words, and deeds, since they are daily evidences of corrupting sins and evils. He promises, He says so, and so it must be: the Lord preserves us in purity, innocence, righteousness, and blessedness; He keeps our soul from all evil and corruption. Though we continue to sin and sinners continue to contaminate themselves, we are continually at the same time forgiven and cleansed from all sin. The mystery of being at the same time, all the time, saint and sinner must be believed even though it is hard to understand.

The promise is meant for me wherever I go and whatever I do for the whole rest of my life and into eternity. It will be easy to see purity preserved in eternity where there is no sin, death, devil, evil or corruption; but it is not easy to see purity preserved in my own corrupt soul while living this present life on earth. For this reason God tells us the truth in His Word so we can believe it and enjoy it.

229. Keeper and Shade

 Psalm 121: 5

The Lord is thy keeper:

The Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand.

The Lord promises to keep, guard, protect, make safe and comfortable; metaphorically the Lord is “shade.” The scorching sun and drenching rain are normally seen as dangerous phenomena that can do us harm; but the Lord Himself is the shade, the roof, and the wall that keeps us safe from the surrounding dangers. Shade is meant to signify protection as well as comfort. The promise is that His children can feel safe and comfortable with the Lord at the right hand.

This promise, as well as many similar promises, is not something we need to be aware of all the time, but when we need to know it we can remember this promise and take comfort. Whenever threats of any kind arise in our life, or even imagined threats in our mind, we can remember shade and all the images and feelings it signifies for us on a hot day. Remember your Baptism, partake of the Lord’s Supper in remembrance of Him, listen at the feet of Jesus, hear the Gospel: when we pause for these reflections we are placing our soul in the shade of His keeping and protecting power.

228. Keep 24/7

Psalm 121:3

He will not suffer thy foot to be moved:

He that keepeth thee will not slumber.

 God, by definition, never sleeps. He is constantly active 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. He is continually involved in life and in His entire creation. Not only is the Lord always alive, always active, always engaged, He is also always “keeping:” He is keeping and guarding and protecting and watching over His people that they may ever be safe and comfortable, alive and well. He keeps us from evil and danger and He keeps us for good in a safe place; from evil and for good. We can count on Him to be there taking care of us at all times and all places, scanning the horizon for evil threats and sweeping out the evil within.

He will not allow your foot to be moved; you will stay where He plants you. Nothing will shake you or alarm you; you will not have to run away from any threats or scary monsters; you will not tremble and collapse in the face of dangers and frightening events. The Lord promises to make you stand firm and strong and solid, unshaken and unmoved. The keeping power of God is more awesome than His judging power. God’s Love is the strongest force in the universe. We are well kept forever.

227. Help

 Psalm 121:2

My help cometh from the Lord,

Which made heaven and earth.

 Who will help me? Where will my help come from? What can I trust to find help for my needs? My help does not come from the hills: the “hills” are the high places where shrines and idols are set up to pray to and ask for help; this was the most common place, Baal and the idol gods, to whom most people would look to for help. “But I will not look to the false idols; my help comes from the Lord, the Creator of the hills and even of the false gods. He alone will help me.”

My help comes from the Lord alone; not from God and someone else but from God alone. The doctor, a lawyer, a counselor, an advisor or some other human aid may be used by God to help me, but the source of the help come from the Lord. We refuse to place our trust in the visible instruments that God uses to help. All good come from God; He gets the credit and the thanks for all the good things and the help He gives in every time of trouble. It may not always look like the help came from the Lord, but He is the One from whom all help comes. Remember the story of: “I sent you two boats and a plane.”

Thank the people through whom the help comes: say, “Thank God for you.” The promise of help is clear and assured. It will be the Lord who helps.

226. Seek the Lost

 Psalm 119:176

I have gone astray like a lost sheep;

Seek thy servant; for I do not forget thy commmandments.

 We have all gone astray and have become lost from time to time, and every time the Good Shepherd seeks out the lost, finds him, and brings him home again. This promise, using the metaphor of the lost sheep, is repeated in various ways in the Bible to give us assurances that the Lord will not let us go, that He will search for us when we wander, that He will seek and save the lost. God is indeed the “hound of heaven” who uses various means to hound us until we surrender to Him. This “hounding” is done through love and tender care, not nagging and harassing.

The Lord has sought us out, He continues to seek us out, and promises to seek until He finds; when He finds He treats us gently, without judging, and draws with cords of love. God and I both take His commandments seriously. We remember His Word of Law and Gospel and respond with faith; we are glad to be securely in the flock and comfortably within in the fold.

This does not mean we can intentionally leave the fold, purposefully go astray, and deliberately ignore the commandments; however, straying unwittingly and unintentionally losing our way we find ourselves in a dangerous place because of sin. It is comforting to know that our God will ever give up on us, but He promises to seek us out until He finds us.