The Book of Praise

I have been reading through books by A.W. Tozer recently and one thing he strongly recommended was the benefit of old hymnals.  He asserted hymns of old were packed with solid theology and were indispensable in private worship.  I thought about what he said and realised among my books I didn't have a hymnal.  So I checked out a website based in Australia which sells rare or out of print books and came across The Book of Praise, selections of English hymn writers by Roundell Palmer in 1867.  When I opened it I discovered the very first hymn is notable among my all-time favourites:  "How Great Thou Art" by Bishop Reginald Heber penned in 1827.

One of the first things I do when I buy a used book is as I flip through to fix all dog-eared pages.  The book is not in the best condition, but it undoubtedly will be a great tool and blessing in drawing near to God.  In the heart of every child of God there is a longing to draw near to the LORD in prayer and praise, and though no substitute for scripture good books can be useful to facilitate this.  May the books we read mark our lives with praise of God!  As I smoothed out the largest dog-ear, I read through a song I will share with you by Charlotte Elliott, written in 1834.  On pages 346-347 it is simply titled, "CCCXXVIII" or "328":

With tearful eyes I look around;

Life seems a dark and stormy sea;

Yet midst the gloom I hear a sound, 

A heavenly whisper, Come to Me!

It tells me of a place of rest;

It tells me where my soul may flee:

Oh! to the weary, faint, opprest,

How sweet the bidding, Come to Me!

When the poor heart with anguish learns

That earthly props resign'd must be,

And from each broken cistern turns,

It hears the accents, Come to Me!

When against sin I strive in vain, 

And cannot from its yoke get free,

Sinking beneath the heavy chain,

The words arrest me, Come to Me!

When nature shudders, loth to part

From all I love, enjoy, and see;

When a faint chill steals o'er my heart,

A sweet voice utters, Come to Me!

Come, for all else must fail and die;

Earth is no resting place for thee;

Heavenward direct thy weeping eye;

I am thy Portion; Come to Me!

O voice of mercy, voice of love!

In conflict, grief and agony,

Support me, cheer me from above, 

And gently whisper, Come to me!

Love Is Patient

While I was doing yardwork today I saw an older man wearing an Akubra approaching.  I had seen this man walking around on the streets near our home other times before.  I would see him lingering around plants, and once he was crawling around looking for something on the ground.  As I swept, he walked up and introduced himself.

He was a soft-spoken man with a friendly, toothy smile.  He wanted to see if I would grant him permission to pluck five small flowers from the bush near the street on my property as had been his custom for many years (unknown to me!).  Apparently the neighbour had told him to move on.  "But she does not own the plant because it is on your property," he said.  "I've no problem with you taking flowers from the bush."  I wasn't planning on using them, and if he had already been doing it what harm would it do?  "I use them for prayers."  Now I wasn't expecting this, a foreign idea to my western mind.

After a pause I asked, "Who do you pray to?"  "I pray to Rama...I'm a Hindu."  Continuing to smile he introduced himself formally, and we shook hands.  "Good to meet you Ben.  I live right around the corner," he said as we parted ways.  The encounter had solved the mystery of what the gentleman had been doing whilst loitering around.  He wasn't loitering:  he was carefully, meticulously gathering flowers to offer to a deity in prayer.  I look forward to meeting up with him again with the aim of speaking of my God and Saviour.

Now I don't know much about Hinduism, but I know devotion when I see it.  From a biblical and Christian perspective I know there is one God, the Creator of this world filled with trees, stones, seas, flowers, animals, and people.  This nice old man from down the street was gathering flowers created by my God to offer to his god, one of many deities served by Hindus.  Strange that Rama would receive a re-purposed gift!  My God does not require an offering of flowers to hear and respond to prayers, and my allegiance ought to be greater than this man - for I know whom I worship, and He knows me.  I grieve that a man would expend such effort to seek the blessings of images and demons who can only destroy and cannot save, but I also rejoice in the opportunity God has provided to share the reality of the Almighty seen in Jesus Christ.

"Land is patient," a mate of mine told me yesterday.  This is true.  God's love is also patient.  There may have been a time in my life I would have blurted out something about my superior God in reply, but I am learning the importance of valuing other people first rather instigating a conversation only to give a message.  The message I have of the Gospel is greater than any man, but it is a message to be delivered according to the leading of the Holy Spirit.  I trust God will provide me the opportunity to sow the good seed of God's Word, learn something from my neighbour, and perhaps make a friend or even better - a brother in Christ along the way.

God Puts Up

God is patient and longsuffering.  As God who is omnipotent and almighty He does not need to endure pains or the folly of men, but He chooses to do so because of His loving character.  Kings of earth can easily pass unpleasant tasks to their many servants.  It seems the more power or authority one possesses the less patient he or she needs to be, but God expresses the exact opposite.

Consider the gracious love which prompted God not only to bring the nation of Israel out of Egypt but to endure them in the wilderness after they rebelled against Him.  Paul said in Acts 13:17-18, "The God of this people Israel chose our fathers, and exalted the people when they dwelt as strangers in the land of Egypt, and with an uplifted arm He brought them out of it. ¹⁸ Now for a time of about forty years He put up with their ways in the wilderness."  And what were the ways of the sons of Israel?  Let's see:  murmuring, complaining, disobedience, idolatry, rebellion, falsely accusing God of wanting to kill them when He sought to save them, and much more.

Before we judge the Israelites harshly, we must recognise we are in no way superior.  These folks were no worse sinners than we are!  The takeaway from Paul's words should not be to nod approvingly in judgment of sinners but to rejoice in the gracious salvation of our God.  We are no prize, yet God has reached out to us whilst mired in sin.  He has long endured our ways and continues to entreat us kindly and provide for all our needs - even when we have been thankless and ungrateful.  How great is the LORD and worthy to be praised!

Having received such grace and love from God, may we be moved to love one another.  We are exhorted in Romans 13:8, "Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law."  Having been adopted, forgiven, reconciled, redeemed, and accepted by God's grace, we owe others a continual dose of the infinite love God has lavished upon us.  No one is worthy of such love and grace, yet we have freely received it through faith in Jesus.  God loves us when we were yet sinners, so clearly this love should not be restricted only to the redeemed or who we deem worthy.  If people must be worthy, where then is grace?  Let us be patient as our LORD is patient towards us.

There is an old saying:  "Put your money where your mouth is."  Basically, this infers if we believe something to be true, we should take action to back it up.  "Put up or shut up," another line goes.  The way God "put up" with His people conveyed the love He had for them.  He did not merely tolerate them but He provided for their needs and guided them in the right way.  He spoke with them, protected them, and ultimately sent Jesus Christ to be the Saviour of all who believe.  If we are indeed children of God, it's time to love people we have been avoiding.  It's time to pray for people who have ill-treated us.  It's time to bless those who have cursed us.  Let's show grace to others according to the grace we have received from God.

The Implications of God's Word

Reverse engineering is the process of deconstructing a man-made object to observe how it has been designed and operates.  When sophisticated military equipment is stranded in a hostile region it is a standard practice to destroy it so enemies cannot analyse, copy, or obtain good data from it.  Technological secrets are highly guarded, and there are safeguards in the industry to prevent copyright infringement.  Studying a complete and functional product can offer tips and clues to how it was made and possibly improve upon the design whilst reducing cost.

When people respond in faith to the Gospel, it is likely they already have established views concerning how the earth or people came to be.  Their worldview has already been established and primarily what has influenced it is secular.  The Bible presents a totally different view concerning our origins and the significance of life.  As children we tended to agree with our parent's views, and as we grew older we were exposed to various teachings and philosophies in school, university, and online.  Those who come to Christ as adults are faced with deconstructing their existing and impotent worldview through the revelation of the Word of God.  The vain wisdom and philosophies of man could not save or deliver from sin, but Jesus Christ is able to do everything.

Sometimes I wonder if people who claim to love and know Jesus Christ observe what He says.  He spoke explicitly of creation in Mark 10:6:  "But from the beginning of the creation, God 'made them male and female.' "  Jesus said in the beginning everything was created in six days, fully-formed as male and female.  This explicitly speaks against any kind of Darwinian evolution to account for the living creatures which are seen in the earth.  The question is not if the chicken or egg came first, but exposes how evolution cannot answer the question where the rooster came from needed to reproduce.  God created people, provided them a gender, and commanded them to multiply.  The genealogy in Luke 3:38 takes us back to the first man Adam, the one God created from the dust of the ground and breathed into him a living soul.  Adam and Eve gave birth to their own kind, and their second son Abel was mentioned by Jesus in Matthew 23:35 and Luke 11:51.  To believe these are literal people likely will deconstruct a lot of beliefs held previously.  To claim man evolved from another kind or that Adam is figurative stands in opposition to the teachings of Jesus.

That's just the beginning.  There are a lot of implications in believing God created the heavens and the earth as it is written in Genesis 1 and the genealogies of scripture.  It is strong evidence the earth is not as old as evolutionists claim (and this number has more than doubled in my lifetime).  Jesus also spoke plainly of Noah and the judgment of a wicked world in the form of a great flood which destroyed the earth (Matt. 24:37-38; Luke 17:26-27).  Having been raised reading and looking to the Bible for truth, I was always surprised how in my public high school classes there was never mention whatsoever of a great flood but an "ice age."  Creation by the word of God, a relatively young earth, and the judgment of the great flood are all confirmed by scripture, and despite widespread scorn (from the same who scorn the suggestion of God's existence) there is good science which supports it.  If we really believe and trust in Jesus, we will take to heart the things He explicitly said, for nothing God has said is untrue or without purpose.

The New Testament is full of references to men and women spoken of in Genesis and speaks of God's creation and judgment of the world as a matter of fact.  Judgment is never a popular subject, but praise the LORD God has told us of what was, is, and is to come.  He has made a way of salvation for all who believe, and our belief is founded on the sure Word of God.  If we will believe God's promise to forgive us sins and grant us entrance into heaven, believing in the existence of Adam, Abel, and Noah - and all the following implications - should not be a stretch.