Wednesday, October 19, 2022

 

Wednesday, October 19, 2022


Psalms 110; 111

Ezra 8:15-36

1 Peter 3:17-4:2


Observance: Henry Martyn, Bible translator in India & Persia (d. 1812)


The hand of our God is gracious to all who seek Him, but His power and His wrath are against all who forsake Him.


What a liberating inversion of the relationship between the world and the believer Ezra has given us! He had made some bold claims about God, and found himself having to walk the walk in front of all his detractors in the empire.


How strongly do we believe what the Bible teaches about God? How deeply have these divine truths sunk into our stubborn, sodden minds? The problem with picking and choosing the bits we like and ignoring the bits we don’t like means that not only are we left with an incomplete picture of the beautiful Christ, but the bits we have decided to keep don’t digest; we neither see Christ truly, nor does Christ bother speaking to us. Christ is perfect, and deserves perfection, yet He chose us miserable sinners, not to make any point other than the fact He loves us perfectly. He would have us know Him perfectly; trust Him perfectly.


One of the absolute worst fables Christians tell each other is about the man in the flood. It varies in the details between tellings, but the basic premise is this: a man is experiencing a flood. His neighbour offers to drive him out; he refuses, claiming God’s protection. Next, a neighbour with a boat comes, again offering help, again refused on the basis of God’s protection. Finally, as the flood waters splash against the guttering, the man is offered a lift from a passing helicopter, again denied. Finally, the man dies, goes to heaven, and asks God why he wasn’t sent help. God replies claiming His hand in the truck, boat and helicopter. This is one of the worst stories going around our church today because it gives unbelievers an excuse to scoff at God’s honour and power.


Ezra was concerned that his mouth was writing cheques that God didn’t want to keep. But Ezra decided to decline an armed guard; he turned away the truck, the boat, and the helicopter. Ezra went straight to God, prostrated his spirit before God’s Spirit, and fasted and made intercessions. Imagine for yourself going on a trek in a country with a second-rate (if any) police force. Imagine making that trek on foot, carrying a king’s ransom in gold and silver. Now imagine making that trek trusting nothing more than God’s promise to love us.


This is the kind of faith we need for revival. This is the kind of trust that Christ spoke of when He told us we could move mountains. An absolute love of and trust in the Lord Jesus makes the kind of spiritual warrior that cause demons to flee and hard hearts to soften; the kind of Christian who can raise the dead and build the kingdom, in the name of Jesus Christ.



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