C. E. Leftwhich
1890
1 All around is bright and fair,
While we work for Jesus;
Joy and peace are everywhere,
While we work for Jesus.
Refrain:
Come, O come, this cheerful, happy day;
Come, O come, to Sunday School away.
2 Every face with pleasure beams,
While we work for Jesus;
Every heart with rapture teems,
While we work for Jesus. [Refrain]
3 Nearer seem the realms above,
While we work for Jesus;
Dearer seems our Saviour’s love,
While we work for Jesus. [Refrain]
Once there was a man named Abram. One day the Lord came to talk to Abram, and Abram asked, “Who will have all my things when I die”.
God promised Abram and his wife Sarai that one day they would be parents, even though they were old and had no children.
God wasn’t sure that Abram understood. So that night He took him outside, and said, “Do you see all the stars that are in the sky”? When Abram looked up, the whole night sky was full of stars, so many in fact that he would never be able to count them. Then God said, “That is how many children you will have”.
Quite a few years later when Abram was ninety-nine years old (older than even your grandparents) the Lord decided to change Abram’s name to Abraham, which means “father of many.” He also changed Sarai’s name to Sarah.
God told them again that they would be parents and that they would have a boy. This time Abraham laughed so hard he fell on his face! It was hard to believe that he and Sarah would have a child in their old age.
One day three visitors came to Abraham’s house. He hurried to meet them. “May I get you something to eat and drink?” Abraham asked. “Please come in and join us, and have a rest on the couch.”
The visitors agreed, so Abraham brought them some fresh bread, milk, and hamburgers.
While the visitors were eating, they asked Abraham, “Where is your wife Sarah?” Abraham thought this was a little strange, but he replied, “She’s in the other room”.
Then one of the men spoke and said, “I will come back to see you at this time next year, and Sarah will have a son.”
Now Sarah was listening behind the living room door. She started to laugh, but covered her mouth and laughed to herself because she didn’t want to be heard. Then she said to herself, “How can I have a child, I’m almost one hundred years old?”
Later when the visitors had left, Abraham and Sarah realized that the man who had told them this was indeed God.
A year later Sarah did have a son. She and Abraham named him Isaac, which means “he laughs.”
They were very excited, and remembered to thank God for Isaac.
“There is no peace like the peace of those whose minds are possessed with full assurance that they have known God, and God has known them, and that this relationship guarantees God’s favor to them in life, through death and on forever.” — a quote from JI Packer
It was my observation that Israel had been the Jewel in God’s eye, but Ezekiel (chapter 6) declares they were polluted in their thinking and their actions. Their worship of the most high had become wallowing in the mud of idolatry. For reasons that seemed foolish they had rejected the realness and beauty of the one true living God for wooden and stone models of a god ‘made up’ by humans.
You might think the Hebrew nation is going to crash and burn. A sad ending indeed. But this is not the ending. God’s grace will prevail. There will be a remnant. A few will remain faithful, they will suffer along with the rest of the Hebrews, but they will not perish. Their heart will not be extinguished. God will shelter them from the deepest troubles. They will pass through the fire unblemished.
Ezekiel 6:8-10 says — But I will spare some, for some of you will escape the sword when you are scattered among the lands and nations. Then in the nations where they have been carried captive, those who escape will remember me—how I have been grieved by their adulterous hearts, which have turned away from me, and by their eyes, which have lusted after their idols. They will loathe themselves for the evil they have done and for all their detestable practices. And they will know that I am the Lord; I did not threaten in vain to bring this calamity on them [NIV].
If you take a look at Isaiah 1:9 we see the same theme. The entire group deserves to be cut off, but by grace, God maintains a remnant. Some will die by the sword but some will escape. None of the people marked to fall by the sword escaped, they put their trust in the walls of the city rather than the God of the city. Their shame of trusting wood, mud and stone was their fall. Those who trusted God, were spared and their seed became the new inhabitants of the City of God.
God’s patience left them room for repentance and for receiving forgiveness. Those who repented, escaped death, he gave them life for their repentance. This story is an encouragement to us that repentance matters. We mess up, we repent, we find forgiveness and restoration. We find a path to weather the storm and find the eye of the hurricane. It is clear this remnant was marked for salvation. God, in his foreknowledge knew who was trusting the walls of the city and who was trusting God. They were made safe by God’s mercy through their repentance.
Please understand, they did suffer, they were carried off as captives, but this was better than death. They were driven out of the promised land but not out of God’s hand. We need to learn from this small patch of history. True repentance shall be accepted by the one true living God. In this light, our troubles are permitted by God who uses the troubles to bring us back to him. Our troubles reinforce the need to repent and demonstrate the depth of his grace and mercy. We make a mess, he cleans it up, but we are wise to never think that repenting is a ‘get out of jail’ card. Sometimes we are simply placed in the eye of the hurricane while the storm rages on. We walk through the valley of death, our God is with us, even there in our deepest troubles. We rest in his peace.
Sin starts when we lose sight of God (implied Jeremiah 3:21). Repentance starts when we restore our gaze upon him. His mercy brings himself to our mind. We respond. Grace finds us in our deepest mess, he brings us hope, he brings us mercy, he brings us out. We resist, he persists. We take the role of the prodigal, we head home, and he runs out to meet us. My friends, make no mistake. God will cause us to know we are in deep trouble, that he is Lord of all, and then provide the opportunity (our choice) for repentance (and a safe haven) or complete chaos. What do you pray for? A safe haven. Let God manage the problems. Find his peace. Move towards his peace. This leads to life. I choose Jesus.
It was my observation while reading Ezekiel (chapter 6) we find a message of firmness interspersed with grace for the Hebrew remnant, now in chapter 7 we find a much different message for those who were continuing to resist the mercy of God and seek solace in the idols of their neighbors. The approaching armies were pressing on Jerusalem, the imagery was strong and persistent. Repent or die. The messaging was very clear. For those who do not repent there will be complete and utter destruction of Jerusalem, they will reach the end of their life. It will not be a gentle death.
Ezekiel 7:1-4 — The word of the Lord came to me: Son of man, this is what the Sovereign Lord says to the land of Israel: The end! The end has come upon the four corners of the land! The end is now upon you, and I will unleash my anger against you. I will judge you according to your conduct and repay you for all your detestable practices. I will not look on you with pity; I will not spare you. I will surely repay you for your conduct and for the detestable practices among you. Then you will know that I am the Lord. [NIV]
In my view this was a fair and substantive warning of the judgement to come. It is unreasonable to assume that some were left unaware of the reason for the attack and siege from the Chaldeans. The prophets of God have been talking about this purging since Isaiah and even before. The message from God has been consistent. Now, the Hebrews can see the armies they have heard about. God kept his word. Yet most of the people are deaf, foolish and uncaring of the message. Jerusalem is in deep trouble, yet the men of the city are not concerned. They are trusting the walls of the city to stop the attack. Ezekiel continues on – the end is near, it has come, he that has ears, let him hear. This is the final event, the end that consummates the foregoing judgements. Now the trouble begins. This is on par with the message of Genesis 6:13 to Noah, which discussed the period of their depraved state, the destruction of the Hebrew nation, the serious deluge that was the end of almost all flesh.
The message was speaking of the end, the end you have been warned about, the end that leaves a scant measure of remnant to build upon after the trouble (see Jeremiah 29:10-14). They were expecting that God would bail them out. But that was not the case (see Deuteronomy 29:28-33). Their pride had obscured the proper impact of God’s wisdom. They were fooling themselves.
This messaging provides us with hints of the things to come down the road, even after Cyrus restores Jerusalem and they wait for the final stretch until the Messiah comes onto the scene. This hint points to the Romans (a replacement for the Chaldeans as a judgement tool). When we read messaging such as the end of things as we know it is at hand, we get the feeling of the thoughts found in Matthew 24:3. It seems that the once the Davidic reign came to close, the Hebrews were always feeling a sense of trouble on the horizon. This day was no different. With one exception. Destruction was going to happen soon, really soon. The veiled warnings were coming to fruit. If it is the last days for Jerusalem, then Daniel 12:13 applies — As for you, go your way till the end. You will rest, and then at the end of the days you will rise to receive your allotted inheritance. [NIV]
Nahum tells us about this kind of evil and trouble that ensues. There is no need to continue day-to-day business. Nahum 1:9 says — What do ye imagine against the Lord? He will make an utter end: affliction shall not rise up the second time [NIV]. The Babylonian thing is a final event. The Hebrew nation is forever changed. The trouble is without precedent or parallel (implied in Psalms 75:8).
This situation exhibits God’s wrath, yet we do see his mercy protecting the remnant. This font of calamity, river of pain, this is the wormwood we find in the depth of Ezekiel’s message. His fury is poured out on the city. Jeremiah 4:18 says — Your own conduct and actions have brought this on you. This is your punishment. How bitter it is! How it pierces to the heart! [NIV]. As for me? I choose Jesus.
Shalom Talk