Peace

"Glory to God in the highest,

And on earth, peace among men with whom He is pleased."

Luke 2:14 (NASB).  Not the usual way that people remember that verse. Most people, if they can quote that verse, know it from the KJV, or from Christmas carols, "On earth, peace, goodwill toward men."  So why did I choose the NASB? How does the change in the verse change the message of the angels that night?

The second advent candle is the candle of peace. The angels declared that peace had come to earth. As both It Came Upon the Midnight Clear and I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day point out, despite the promise of peace from the angles, instead we have had two thousand years of war and strife since the birth of Christ.  So what does that verse mean? Is it only a promise of future peace, when Christ comes again?

I don't think so. In John 14, when Jesus is comforting His disciples and promising the Spirit, he tells them, "Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; Not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful."  In Philippians 4, Paul promises that if we take everything to God, the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard our hearts and or minds.

So what is this peace that we celebrate during the time of Advent?  It is not peace as the world understands it. In fact, the world cannot understand it, because to the world, it is foolishness. It is the peace that allowed the martyrs in Rome to face the coliseum. It is the peace that enabled Stephen to ask for the forgiveness of his murderers. It is the pace that has enabled believers throughout the world to endure persecution, imprisonment, beatings, starvation, beheadings, and murders and respond, "Blessed be the name of the Lord."

And what is amazing is that this peace is offered to each and every one of us in Christ. Do I face the little trials of my every day life with this peace guarding my heart? I wish I could say that I do in every circumstance. But instead I have given in to despair and discouragement at times. What a Friend We Have in Jesus says "We should never  be discouraged, take it to the Lord in prayer." We truly have no excuse as believers to give in to discouragement and despair. God is in control. We can be sad, we can mourn, we can grieve, we can pray for God to change our circumstances, but we can never despair, because God is good, and his lovingkindness is everlasting.

I don't actually have a hymn to attach to this post. I would have chosen It Came Upon the Midnight Clear, but I've already written a blog post about it here.

Passages that I meditated on in preparing this post:

Isaiah 40

Philippians 4

Matthew 10

Luke 2

John 14

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel

To start things off, I apologize for the delay between the last post and this one.  I have had a very busy last month and a half, with a lot of traveling.  However, I hope to post at least the next four weeks for Advent.

Today is the first Sunday of Advent, the day the candle of Hope is lit in many churches.  This morning, as I reflected on the theme of "hope," I thought about the object of my hope.  As a general rule, there are two ways to hope: we hope "for," and we hope "in."  We hope "for" the things we want: a good job, a nice Christmas, peace on earth.  We hope "in" whatever we think will accomplish those things.  Our culture actually hopes "for" many of the same things that Christians do, and at Christmastime, particularly this year, none is more immediately apparent than peace on earth.  As Christians, of course, our hope is for things far greater than that, but let's pause here for a moment.

If we hope "for" the same things, then what sets us apart from the world?  What sets us apart is what he hope  "in."  As a culture, we hope "in" many things: wealth, political or military power, fame, justice, the "brotherhood of man."  Look at the current rhetoric on all sides in the media about the North Korea nuclear program.  You hear arguments from one side that diplomatic pressure, patience, and an appeal to reason will bring about peace in that situation.  You hear from their opponents that military force will be the only way to bring about peace on the Korean peninsula.  And then there is a small and largely ignored voice that proclaims the truth: there is no peace apart from Christ.  There may be temporary peace, but the true need in every crisis situation on earth is the love of Christ.  There will never be peace on earth until Christ returns to reign.

For Christians, that is the beauty of hope.  Our hope is not "in" mankind.  Our hope is not "for" something as small as a temporary peace on earth. Our hope is "in" and "for" the same thing:  the promised return and reign of the King of kings and the Lord of lords, Jesus Christ of Nazareth, who came to earth as a baby two thousand years ago, lived among us, died on a cross for our sins, rose on the third day to declare that the power of sin and death have been broken, was seen by witnesses, ascended to heave, sits at the right hand of God the Father, and is coming again to reign over all the earth and to judge the living and the dead.  What a glorious hope we have. 

If I would reflect on that single sentence every morning, how it would change my outlook every day.  That is the reality that we live in.  That is the hope that we as Christians are privileged to cling to.  1 Peter 1:3-5 calls us to rejoice and bless God for causing us  "to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead."  Our hope is not dead hope.  We are not, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, "of all men most to be pitied," because Christ did in fact rise from the dead, and He is coming again.

I'm not going to write them out on here, because this post is already far too long, but if you want to reflect on the passages that I did as I wrote this, they are: Isaiah 6:1-7, 7:10-14, 9:1-7; 1 Corinthians 15, and 1 Peter 1.  Not that there aren't dozens of other passages that could have formed the backbone for these thoughts, but those were the ones that shaped this post.

"Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel." -Is 7:14 (NASB)

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel, as a hymn, first appeared in Latin in a Catholic psalter in the 18th century.  It was a paraphrase of the "O Antiphons," which date back at least to the 9th century, and which were traditionally used in the seven days before Christmas.  It was translated into English by John Neale in 1851, though it has been modified over the years from that initial translation.  The verses address Christ by the various names and titles that He is given in Scripture, but they all have one common theme: "Come, Lord Jesus."  Let that be our prayer as we enter this season of Advent.  Come, Lord Jesus, come.

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel

O come, O come, Emmanuel,

And ransom captive Israel,

That  mourns in lonely exile here

Until the Son of God appear.

Rejoice! Rejoice!

Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Wisdom from on high,

Who orderest all things far and nigh;

To us the path of knowledge show,

And teach us in her ways to go.

O come, O come, great Lord of might,

Who to Thy tribes on Sinai's height,

In ancient times once  gave the law

In cloud and majesty and awe.

O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free,

Thine own from Satan's tyranny;

From depths of hell Thy people save,

And give them victory o'er the grave.

O come, Thou Key of David, come,

And open wide our heavenly home;

Make safe the path that leads on high;

That we no more have cause to sigh.

O come, Thou Dayspring, come and cheer

Our spirits by Thine advent here;

Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,

And deaths dark shadows put to flight.

O come, Thou Root of Jesse's tree,

An ensign of Thy people be;

Before Thee rulers silent fall;

All peoples on Thy mercy call.

O come, Desire of nations, bind

In one the hearts of all mankind;

Bid Thou our sad divisions cease,

And be Thyself our King of Peace.

(public domain)

Begone Unbelief

"Immediately the boy's father cried out and said, 'I do believe; help my unbelief.'"           Mark 9:24, NASB

Oftentimes, I find myself in a situation where I am hurting, or lonely, or frustrated, because I have run out of solutions. I don't know what to do anymore, so I stop to pray. I have it backwards. When a situation comes around, good, bad, or indifferent, my first instinct should be go to the Lord in prayer. I should be so filled with His presence on a daily basis that I don't even have to wait for a situation to become apparent.

Even when I do go to Him, it's in a "please do what I want," rather than a "Thy will be done" attitude. The father who came to Jesus and said "If you are able, please heal my son," had nowhere else to turn. But Jesus wasn't just looking to be his last resort that "might work." He wanted this man to acknowledge that Jesus was the only one who was able. He wanted this man to face the unbelief in his heart. And the man got the message. He saw the unbelief in his heart, he knew he could do nothing about it, but he knew that Jesus could. "Help my unbelief."

These past several months have been difficult for me, for a variety of reasons. My fiancee broke off our engagement, a family friend was murdered outside his home, I have struggled with feelings of depression, loneliness, and doubts of my own self-worth, and I have had friends go into the hospital with debilitating illnesses. All of these things came in a perfect storm these last few months. But as the lyrics to a song written by a friend of mine say, "If You can calm the raging sea, You can calm the storm in me."

This hymn that I'm reflecting on today, Begone Unbelief, was written by John Newton (yes, that John Newton, the one who wrote Amazing Grace) in 1779. It is set to the same tune, Lyons, as O Worship the King and Ye Servants of God, Your Master Proclaim.

What I love about this hymn is the imagery that you see and the reminders of truth throughout.

"With Christ in the vessel, I smile at the storm." Everything I said about

"Though cisterns be broken, and creatures all fail, The Word He has spoken shall surely prevail." After every provision we have stored up is gone, and after every earthly creature has failed us, God is still there, He is still good, and He still has the best answer.

"Each sweet Ebenezer" is a reminder of God's goodness in the past. "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever." (Hebrews 13:8, NASB). An "ebenezer" is a memorial stone, set up to remind us of God's goodness in the past. The word comes from 1 Samuel 7:12, where Samuel sets up a stone in commemoration of God's help to the Israelites in their victory at Mizpah and calls it an Ebenezer.

"He told me no less." Christ told us that we would suffer for following him. As if that wasn't enough, Paul, James, Peter, John, and the author of Hebrews all made it abundantly clear. Why do we still seem surprised? Of course, we're not alone, look at 1 Peter 4:12: "Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you." (NASB).

"Did Jesus thus suffer, and shall I repine?" We so want a life of ease. I love the way that Paul Tripp puts it, that we want the grace of relief, when what we need is the grace of refinement. Isaac Watts addresses this same question in Am I a Soldier of the Cross?, reminding us that we are called to follow in Christ's footsteps, to daily take up our cross and follow Him.

Join me in singing as we remind ourselves of God's goodness yesterday and today and forever:

Begone Unbelief

Begone unbelief, my Savior is near,

And for my relief will surely appear:

By prayer let me wrestle, and He wilt perform,

With Christ in the vessel, I smile at the storm.

Though dark be my way, since He is my guide,

’Tis mine to obey, ’tis His to provide;

Though cisterns be broken, and creatures all fail,

The Word He has spoken shall surely prevail.

His love in time past forbids me to think

He’ll leave me at last in trouble to sink;

Each sweet Ebenezer I have in review,

Confirms His good pleasure to help me quite through.

Determined to save, He watched o’er my path,

When Satan’s blind slave, I sported with death;

And can He have taught me to trust in His name,

And thus far have brought me, to put me to shame?

Why should I complain of want or distress,

Temptation or pain? He told me no less:

The heirs of salvation, I know from His Word,

Through much tribulation must follow their Lord.

How bitter that cup, no heart can conceive,

Which He drank quite up, that sinners might live!

His way was much rougher, and darker than mine;

Did Jesus thus suffer, and shall I repine?

Since all that I meet shall work for my good,

The bitter is sweet, the medicine is food;

Though painful at present, wilt cease before long,

And then, O! how pleasant, the conqueror’s song!

(Public Domain)

It Is Not Death to Die

What a title for a blog post. And what a post to have to write. About a week and a half ago, I found out that an older family friend had been beaten to death outside his home. I'm sure you can imagine the shock I felt when I heard that. Death is never an easy topic to deal with. It hits us deeply for a variety of reasons: we know that we will all die someday; we have experienced losing people we care about; we have a hard time imagining situations without someone there.

But God has given us Scripture to remind us of truth, to strengthen us for battle, to convict us of our sin, and to comfort us in our grief. The apostle Paul in his first letter to the Thessalonians, reminded them:

"But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus . . . Therefore comfort one another with these words." (1 Thessalonians 4:13-14, 18, NASB).

 Comfort one another with these words. The hymn I am writing about is meant for comfort. It is not death to die. What a radical statement! This world tells us that we are born, we die, we are buried, we turn to dust, and nothing more. But God has told us truth, and that truth sets us free. I need not fear the grave. I need not grieve without hope. I grieve for the loss of a friend temporarily. I grieve for the pain and anguish that his family is going through. But I grieve knowing that we will be reunited with him. He has fallen asleep in Jesus, and so God will bring him with Jesus when He comes. God is good!

This hymn was written in French in 1832 by Henri Abraham César Malan, and translated into English in 1847 by George Benthune, who asked that the hymn be sung at his funeral.  The traditional music for it was written by Joseph E. Sweetser in 1849. There is a beautiful modification of the lyrics and music by Bob Kauflin, which can be found here and here, and I highly encourage you to listen to it. My video below follows pretty closely the original music.

It Is Not Death to Die

It is not death to die

To leave this weary road

And midst the brotherhood on high

To be at home with God.

It is not death to close

The eye long dimmed by tears,

And wake, in glorious repose,

To spend eternal years.

It is not death to bear

The wrench that sets us free

From dungeon chain to breath the air

Of boundless liberty.

It is not death to fling

Aside this sinful dust

And rise, on strong exulting wing

To live among the just.

Jesus, Thou Prince of Life,

Thy chosen cannot die:

Like Thee, they conquer in the strife

To reign with Thee on high.

(Public Domain)

Tell Me the Old, Old Story

To start with, I want to apologize for it having been so long since I last wrote.  With the exception of last December's post, since the last time I posted regularly on this blog, I have lived in 3 different states, visited 7, taken and passed a bar exam, began a whole new career, and had busy, good, and difficult times. None of that excuses my failure to keep up on this blog, and I hope that those of you who have followed this blog for a time or have stumbled upon it since the last time I posted regularly will forgive me. I hope to get back to posting somewhat regularly, with my goal being twice a month, probably on Sundays.

In 1865, then in her thirties, Katherine Hankey fell seriously ill. It was in January 1866, as she began her long road to recovery, that she began to write a poem. She wrote eight verses, and then laid it aside. In November 1866, she picked up those verses and wrote another 47. The full poem, entitled "The Old, Old Story," consists of two parts. The first part, "The Story Wanted," were those first eight verses, and the second part, "The Story Told" responds by telling the story of Jesus and His love. The eight verses at the beginning were combined into 4 verses for the hymn I'm writing about today, "Tell Me the Old, Old Story." Ms. Hankey also wrote another hymn, "I Love to Tell the Story," based on her poem. Because the poem is so long, rather than reproducing it here, I will simply provide this link to it. I encourage you to read it. As I read it, I began to tear up because of how simply, yet beautifully, it tells the old, old story.

The music for this hymn was written by William Howard Doane, who heard the words to the poem read by a British Major General at the International Convention of the YMCA (back when the C actually stood for Christian), and was inspired to write music for those words. One more well-known hymn that he also wrote the music for is "To God be the Glory."

What I love about this hymn is that it acknowledges our need to hear the Gospel preached to us repeatedly. It acknowledges that we "forget so soon," that we are often "weak and weary," and that "this world's empty glory [costs us] too dear" far too often.

When life is hard and I am tired of fighting temptation and frustration and despair, when I forget the truth, when I need comfort, or when I am facing an opportunity for my own glory, do I go to my brothers and sisters in Christ? They will remind me of the truth:

"For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth."      (Job 19:25, ESV).

"Therefore, I will always be ready to remind you of these things, even though you already know them, and have been established in the truth which is present with you."   (2 Peter 1:12, NASB).

"On an appointed day Herod, having put on his royal apparel, took his seat on the rostrum and began delivering an address to them. The people kept crying out, 'The voice of a god and not of a man!' And immediately an angel of the Lord struck him because he did not give God the glory, and he was eaten by worms and died."                                      (Acts 12:21-23).

  Are we always ready to remind one another of truth, and to preach the Gospel to each other? Are we running to those we know will remind us of the truth when we need to hear it? Let the cry of our heart be, "Tell Me the Old, Old Story." Let our answer to any need start with "Christ Jesus makes thee whole." It can't end there. As brothers and sisters in Christ, we need to care for one another, bear one another's burdens, and meet one another's needs. But if it doesn't start with Christ, it will never be enough. To quote the first question of the Heidelberg Catechism:

What is your only comfort in life and in death? That I am not my own, but belong with body and soul, both in life and in death, to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ.

Tell Me the Old, Old Story

Tell me the old, old story

Of unseen things above,

Of Jesus and His glory,

Of Jesus and His love;

Tell me the story simply,

As to a little child,

For I am weak and weary,

And helpless and defiled.

Tell me the old, old story,

Tell me the old, old story,

Tell me the old, old story,

Of Jesus and His love.

 Tell me the story slowly,

That I may take it in,

That wonderful redemption,

God's remedy for sin.

Tell me the story often,

For I forget so soon;

The early dew of morning

Has passed away at noon.

Tell me the story softly,

With earnest tones and grave;

Remember I'm the sinner

Whom Jesus came to save.

Tell me the story always,

If you would really be,

In any time of trouble,

A comforter to me.

Tell me the same old story

When you have cause to fear

That this world's empty glory

Is costing me too dear.

Yes, and when that world's glory

Is dawning on my soul,

Tell me the old, old story:

"Christ Jesus makes thee whole."

(Public Domain)