We are getting to
host our Endicott family for a Thanksgiving banquet tomorrow evening. We will
be traveling to Washington, DC for our annual Thanksgiving Celebration. We are
getting ready for worship this Sunday. Plan to be in the house of the Lord
where ever you might be.
The culture that
has negated Christ, the world that has forgotten the Lord of Lords is suddenly
on the verge of fear and frenzy as we face terror and danger on the every front,
around the corner and around the globe. The nations that have rejected Christ,
now almost bankrupt spiritually and morally, are facing the dread of terrorism.
Suddenly many of the world leaders find them self caught in the midst of
quandary.
We had a meeting
yesterday with our Bishop, Bishop Webb, who loves Jesus and serves him and the
Church with great fervor and zeal. He shared with us that various commentators
from all back grounds agree that Germany, France, and England faced the crisis
in the 18th century, we are facing today. Germany and France went through a
cataclysmic revolution whereas England was saved from the devastating and
destructive revolution because of the two Wesley Brothers, John and Charles.
They proclaimed the Gospel throughout the land. The current times and the
political and economic climate demand for us to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus,
unafraid and without any apology or compromise. What a wonderful time to be
alive and to be part of the eternal Kingdom of Jesus Christ.
One of the Psalms I love to read during the times of
crisis and confusion is Psalm 121. I love the words shade, help, and especially keep.
These are words that are used to describe what God is and does for His people.
He is our shade. He is our help. And especially, repeatedly in this psalm, He
is our keeper. That's a term of His providence and His protection. He keeps
His people. This is repeated through the psalm. We read about the hills or the
mountains in the very first stanza of the song, although the hills do not
constitute the source of the psalmist's security. The hills are not his refuge;
they are in fact a menace. Travel in the mountains or the hills could be
dangerous. It's a place where your foot could easily slip and bring
you harm. (I grew up in the
area in Orissa surrounded by mountains where tigers and wild animals roamed,
where the venomous snakes crawled.) Robbers can also hide in the mountains and
present a danger to pilgrims. As David lifted his eyes to the hills he did not
see the source of his help, but a source of fear, so he asked, “What is the
source of my help?”
Some of us try to find security in ourselves and through what we
do. When we find ourselves in dangerous and challenging situations, we
sometimes try to find an answer for our insecurities in an activity; we try to
fix the situation. At other times we look for a sense of security and help and
stability in other things. It may be in circumstances or it may be aid from
some other location rather than God, but ultimately, whether we look inwardly or
whether we look to our circumstances, neither of those things can be the source
of our help and our security. The only source, the psalmist tells us, is in
God.
It is vital that we ask ourselves, "what is the source of our
security?" The monumental spiritual
answer comes in verse 2, and that is that God Himself, the Lord, is the only
reliable source of our security. “My help comes from the LORD who made the
heavens and the earth.” We can see the same thought replicated in Psalm 124:8,
“Our help is in the name of the LORD who made the heavens and the
earth.” John Calvin used this verse for the call
to worship for every worship service. “Our help is in the name of the LORD,” “My help comes from the
LORD.” The psalmist personally, individually, acknowledged that the Lord was his
help.
It is important that Our help is in the name of the Lord and my help is in the name of the Lord.
There is both a corporate and a personal and individual aspect to the Christian
life. They are not competing; there is no contradiction here. We need them
both. If all we have is the pronoun “my” in our spiritual vocabulary we're in
trouble because we need one another. God does not send us off into the world by
ourselves. He gave us family, a church family in the first place, to walk the
walk of faith, to be pilgrims and sojourners in this world. We need the “our”
of the Christian life as well as the “my” of the Christian life.
The psalmist made a very emphatic personal statement, “My help
comes from the LORD who made earth and
heaven”. He also emphasized that, “God is the only reliable source of our
security.
Behold, He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.” He will
guide our steps. He will not let our feet be moved. In other words, He won't
let us fall. “He who keeps Israel will
neither slumber nor sleep.” He's never asleep! He's always watching!
I love Mendelssohn's Elijah.
“He watcheth over Israel, slumbers not nor sleeps.” It's one of the great
contrasts between the God of Israel and the gods of Canaan, Mesopotamia, and
Egypt, all of whom who are depicted in various artifacts of culture, as sleeping
from time to time. When gods in Mesopotamia didn't answer their people's
prayers, their people said, “Well, our god was sleeping.” Elijah went out of his
way to emphasize that in contrast to the false gods, the Baals, the God of
Israel never slept. He never took a nap. He was always watching over His
people. The psalmist here just reminds himself of that. “He who keeps Israel” is the language of protection.
It's the language of providence. It begins here and it echoes throughout the psalm. What we all need is protection and so the language is
repeated over and over. He will keep you; He will protect you; He is your
keeper; He is your protector. He protects Israel; He will protect you. He also
preaches this to himself. “He will guide me. He will always guide me
because He's never sleeping. He's watching over me and He will keep me. He
will protect me.” There is a
comprehensive providence over us by the Lord and the psalmist preaches this
message to himself. “He is concerned for my whole existence. He will keep your
life.” Not only is He concerned for the
whole of your existence, look at how the psalm ends. He is concerned for the
whole course of our life, from beginning to end. “The LORD
will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and
forevermore.”
In Christ,
Brown
