Hello everyone!
It seems that week by week now there is a new, more intense, level of anxiety in our State of Victoria as the COVID-19 pandemic refuses to cooperate with ever tighter restrictions placed on us. Week by week, it seems. There is no denying the collective disappointment we all feel at the latest measures announced yesterday, and the sense of gloom that hangs over our city. Week by week we have been praying for a turnaround of this terrible situation … it hasn’t happened yet. We run into yet another week, this time with tighter restrictions and this will last six weeks.
As I say, week by week … seems hard to do …
But my eyes fell upon Isaiah 50:4 this morning …
“The Sovereign LORD has given me a well-instructed tongue, to know the word that sustains the weary. He wakens me morning by morning, wakens my ear to listen like one being instructed.”
As a preacher I was immediately encouraged by that first sentence. I felt God was reassuring me personally about the ministry of preaching that He has entrusted to me. Every preacher worth their salt wants to be able to bring comfort and encouragement to their church family when everyone is feeling wearied by life and all its pressures. Every preacher worth their salt works diligently in the Word and listens to Holy Spirit and takes the ministry of preaching very seriously. Many hours go into just one message … it is a great and joyous privilege to minister week by week in this way.
But that week by week thing comes into a wonderfully different perspective when we remember that day by day, in fact, morning by morning the Lord awakens us, and alerts us with fresh instruction and understanding if we’re poised to carefully listen …
“He awakens me morning by morning …
The Lord is proactive about this.
“… wakens my ear to listen …”
He even helps me understand what He is saying!
So, though the weeks may seem to drag on and on, fresh each morning the Lord is speaking to us, and is helping us to understand His will. Something fresh and new every morning as the prophet Jeremiah once wrote more than 2600 years ago …
Lamentations 3:21-23 “Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: 22 Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. 23 They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.”
Jeremiah had one of the roughest ministries of any prophet in the Old Testament – years and years of hard opposition. It wasn’t week by week, but year by year. How he did not collapse under the pressure is simply amazing. But we get a good clue here in Lamentations 3 … “This I call to mind and therefore I have hope: because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed by all that is going on, as hard and as painful as this may be, for His compassion never fails to recognise us. His mercies are fresh and new every morning … O Lord, great is Your faithfulness, to me.”
This pandemic is becoming a grueling week by week impost … but this I call to mind: morning by morning, brand new every morning are God’s mercies to us! O, Lord, great is Your faithfulness, to me!
FINAL WORD …
Joshua was about to engage in a pretty big battle. His first. Jericho. He was a bit perplexed about it, but he was a man of prayer. It is written in Joshua 5 that while the Israelites were encamped on the plains of Jericho and preparing to attack Jericho, Joshua went for a walk. I like to think to myself it was a prayer walk … Anyway, he came near the city and the Scriptures record that he suddenly came upon a man who was just standing there as if expecting him …
Joshua 5:13-15 Joshua looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went up to him and asked, "Are you for us or for our enemies?" "Neither," he replied, "but as commander of the army of the LORD I have now come." Then Joshua fell facedown to the ground in reverence, and asked him, "What message does my Lord have for His servant?" The commander of the LORD's army replied, "Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy." And Joshua did so.
What an incredible moment for Joshua. Here he is on the eve of his first battle as leader of Israel, he is out walking and no doubt praying, and he suddenly sees an angel, the commander of the Lord’s army standing there, ready for battle. The angel states a very crucial thing to Joshua when asked whose side he is on: “Neither! But as commanded of the army of the Lord, I have now come.” He is on the Lord’s side, and if Joshua wants his help, he needs to be sure he is as well. Two things strike me here. Did Joshua need reminding? Probably! Many of us can think we are on the Lord’s side when we’re not, or not completely … and we just need to be nudged into a right place where we definitely are. And this, I believe, is why Joshua humbled himself and wanted to know what the Lord wanted to say and do – he believed in his God-given responsibility, and didn’t want to go outside that, but he also wanted to know the Lord’s heart in that moment.
The second thing is this: when our hearts are “perfect” toward God, we can with great confidence count on His presence and help – and it won’t delay in coming. To have a heart “perfect” toward the Lord on the Hebrew of the Old Testament is not about having achieved sinless perfection, but to have a heart fully devoted to the Lord – no compromise. It is said of one of the kings of Judah, Amaziah, who was 25 years old when he ascended the throne (and reigned for 29 years), that …
2 Chronicles 25:2 “… he did that which was right in the sight of the LORD, but not with a perfect heart.”
He did all the right things … but out of a sense of duty, not out of a heart fully devoted to the Lord. Joshua did that which was right, and that evening when he reverenced the commander of the Lord’s army, he ensured his heart was fully devoted to the Lord, too. The heart perfect towards the Lord, the one who has set himself, or herself, apart as an obedient servant, is the one who receives a vision of Christ, or the confirmation of Christ, as ally and Captain. Here were three armies juxtaposed and ready for battle – the Canaanites of Jericho, the Israelites … and the heavenly armies, waiting to war against the evil spirits which ruled the darkness of the land.
Joshua’s heart was perfect towards the Lord. The Lord did battle form him. And gave him victory. Many believers do what is right out of a sense of religious duty or obligation, but their hearts are not perfect towards the Lord. When it comes to battle, the commander of the Lord’s army does not fight for them.
2 Chronicles 16:9 “For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward Him ...”
To show Himself strong on behalf of the heart perfect towards the Lord.
Selah!
You are so dearly loved! (And I miss you so much!)
Ps Milton