Lessons from the Psalms: Revive Us Again

“Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you? Show us your steadfast love; O Lord, and grant us your salvation.” -Psalm 85:6-7 (ESV) [Read Psalm 85]

     Psalm 85, attributed to “the sons of Korah,” is asking God to revive the people and the land, a community lament, believed to be based on the incident recorded in Exodus 34:1-10 when Moses was commanded to take two more tablets of stone on which God would again write the commandments. Moses had been so angry and disappointed when he came down from Mount Sinai with the first tablets of stone on which God had written the ten commandments and found the people worshiping the golden calf fashioned from their own jewelry melted down (see Exodus 32:19), that he had thrown the stones in anger and broken them. Then followed Moses’ heart-rending prayer: “But now, if you will, forgive their sin—but if not, please blot me out of your book that you have written” (Exodus 32:32). But God had not finished with Moses, nor with His chosen people, although He had purged them with about three thousand falling on that awful day of their worshiping the golden calf (see Exodus 32:28b).

     Move forward to the time of the writing of Psalm 85. The Psalmist is appealing to the people to remember God’s dealing with them and is pleading for a current outpouring of God’s blessing consequent upon the people’s not turning back to folly (v. 8). It is always good to remember God’s work in the past and plead that He will again revive so that “Righteousness will go before him and make his footsteps a way.”

     We ourselves are now in the midst of remembering. During the week leading up to Resurrection Sunday, many of us meet in our churches to recall with reverence and awe the Lord’s passion and His death on the cross that brought about the fulfillment of what the Psalmist wrote in 85:10-11: “Steadfast love and faithfulness meet; righteousness and peace kiss each other. Faithfulness springs up from the ground, and righteousness looks down from the sky.” The Psalmist could not have known all the implications of fulfillment of his words. On a day of atonement in the far distant future from the time the psalm was written, the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ on the Cross would be bring to fruition the promise when “Steadfast love and faithfulness meet”—and indeed they met as Jesus on the cross uttered “It is finished!” (John 19:30).

     Renewal and revival for us came at the cost of the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. Poets, writers and ministers have tried through the ages to express the depth of love and the great cost of what it means for us to be revived—to come from death in sin to life of forgiveness, when “steadfast love and faithfulness meet” in our own spirit and life.

     The third stanza of “O Sacred Head Now Wounded” by Paul Gerhardt (1607-1676) [words translated by James W. Anderson, 1804-1859]. set to the minor music “Passion Chorale” by Hans Leo Hassler (1564-1612) and harmonized by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) gives a poignant statement of how we should respond when we think of the price Jesus paid:

     “What language shall I borrow/To thank Thee, dearest Friend,

       For this Thy dying sorrow,/Thy pity without end?

       O make me Thine forever,/And should I fainting be,

       Lord, let me never, never/Outlive my love to Thee."

      Prayer: May it be so, Lord. O, revive us again!”       Ethelene Dyer Jones 03.25.2016

The Birthday of a King!

“And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth.  And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger; because there was no place for them in the inn.” -Luke 2:L6-7 (ESV)

     Now the birth of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords was on this manner:  Because there was no room in Bethlehem Inn, Mary with her husband Joseph were lodged in a stable.  This resting place, we are told, may have been a limestone cave in a hillside near the inn where animals were sheltered from the elements and rested at night following a day of grazing.  Or it may have been a place where people lodging in the inn kept their animals.  This would have been a room or area beneath the house at ground level, a place especially for animals.  Because the Jews were very fastidious, the stable would have been cleaned thoroughly.  Still this was an unlikely place for the birth of anyone, especially the King of Glory, the Savior of the world, Lord of Lords, Messiah.

     And so it came to pass that the place of the King’s birth was a stable.  And his first earthly resting place was a manger—a feeding trough for animals.  What do the stable and the manger represent?  They bespeak the poverty, humility and humanity of Jesus. The poverty, “no crib for a bed.”  The humility, Immanuel, God with us, was among the lowliest—born where a servant might have been born.  In Philippians 2:6-7 we read:  Who, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.”  As to the humanity of the Baby, He could cry, He felt heat and cold, He was subject in His body to all the feelings, emotions and needs of any human, although God (Immanuel—God with us).  He was born wholly human, wholly divine.  Later we would be told of Him: “He was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15, ESV).

     Jeremiah the prophet wrote:  “I will raise up…a King who will reign wisely” (Jeremiah 23:5).  Song writer and musician William Harold Neidlinger gave us both words and music to the carol “The Birthday of a King”:

          “In the little village of Bethlehem, There lay a child one day,

          And the sky was bright with a holy light O’er the place where Jesus lay.

          Aleluia! O How the angels sang, Aleluia!  How it rang!

          And the sky was bright with a holy light,

          ‘Twas the birthday of a King.”

     Prayer:  Today as we celebrate the birthday of the King of kings and Lord or lords, let us allow the depth of truth of this blessed event to draw us closer to Him.  May we adore and serve Him in true allegiance to the King of kings.  Amen.              

     May each who reads this have a blessed Christmas.  -Ethelene Dyer Jones  12.25.2015.

On This National Day of Prayer, Hear Our Cry, O Lord

Yet regard the prayer of Your servant and his supplication, O Lord my God, and listen to the cry and the prayer which Your servant is praying before you today.” -1 Kings 8:28 (NKJV).

     Throughout America today Christians are called to pray and seek God’s face, to lift prayers of repentance and faith on behalf of our leaders, our people, our nation, our mission, and our hope.  We pray for healing of our nation, for an awakening to spiritual truth and recognition that God is our God and He is active in the affairs of men and of our nation.

     Dr. Jack Graham, pastor of Prestonwood Baptist Church in El Plano, Texas, is honorary chairman of National Day of Prayer.  He offers the following prayer and invites us to sincerely and earnestly seek God, praying in our own way as we implore God’s grace upon our nation.  As the scripture selected for today teaches us, “Lord, hear our cry” is a sincere prayer of all of us who seek to awaken to God’s omnipotence and humbly believe that He does, indeed, hear and answer the prayers of His people.  Therefore, let us pray:

            “Heavenly Father,

We come to You in the Name that is above every name—Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.  Our hearts cry out to you.

            Knowing that You are a prayer-answering, faithful God—the One we trust in times like these—we ask that You renew our spirits, revive our churches, and heal our land.

            We repent of our sins and ask for Your grace and power to save us.  Hear our cry, O God, and pour out Your Spirit upon us that we may walk in obedience to Your Word.

            We are desperate for Your tender mercies.  We are broken and humbled before you.

            Forgive us, and in the power of Your great love, lift us up to live in Your righteousness.

            We pray for our beloved nation.  May we repent and return to You and be a light to the nations.  And we pray for our leaders and ask that You give them wisdom and faith to follow You.

            Preserve and protect us for You are our refuge and hope.

            Deliver us from all fears except to fear You and may we courageously stand in the Truth that sets us free.

            We pray with expectant faith and grateful hearts.

            In Jesus’ name, our Savior.  Amen.”

     Hear our cry, O Lord.  –From sea to shining sea today, as men, women and children lift voices to You, Almighty God, hear our humble cry.  –Ethelene Dyer Jones  05.07.2015