Can You Thank God for Everything?

Berean Baptist on January 8, 2018

Psalms 119:71

In Psalm 119, there is an unexpected blessing for which the psalmist gave thanks. He said in the 71st verse, “It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I might learn thy statutes.” Could you see yourself writing this line? Most of us would never welcome hardships as a teaching method, so we are not likely to ask God to send us pain in order to teach us a lesson. It is only after the pain is endured and has yielded the benefit of bringing us closer to the Lord that we appreciate it.

This thought is expressed in Hebrews 12 regarding chastisement. The writer said chastisement is always grievous, but it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness. Even when chastisement is not the issue, suffering has great benefits for the soul because it teaches us to pray and depend on God. The Bible never tells us to ask God that we would never suffer and neither does it promise we will not. God knows how to bless in mysterious ways and this is the realization of the psalmist after considering his problems.

While preparing this article, I found another interesting perspective on suffering. J.R. Illingsworth wrote: ”The earliest form of trouble is for most of us physical pain, and our instinctive tendency is to view pain as an unmitigated evil. But such a view of pain is not in accordance with the facts of life. Pain is beyond question the great educator of the soul. Pain makes men real. It indurates their character. It endows them with spiritual insight. But, beyond all this, pain invests a man with a mysterious attractiveness for others. There is a heroism in the very fact of suffering which lifts the sufferer above us, and makes us feel that he is moving in a realm of being to us unknown, till our sympathy is hushed into something of awe-struck admiration, and from the blending of sympathy with awe comes love.”

I thought this was a truly sublime thought. Think of those you have seen endure pain for long periods of time. Do you admire them for their courage to suffer without complaint? Isn’t there something about them that causes you to lift them up as a model you think you could never attain?

I still remember a lady that passed away more than fifty years ago from cancer. My dad would go to visit her and many times I went along somewhat reluctantly because I did not like those kinds of visits. She suffered terribly, and yet her faith was firmly in God and she never complained that God had been unfair to her. What caused me to remember her when there are so many in my dad’s ministry I have forgotten? Pain etched her memory in my mind. Her ability to endure it left an indelible impression. Did this lady know her pain was for this purpose? She probably never imagined it. But, such things God knows. Blessings do not always seem to be blessings until they have yielded the peaceable fruits of righteousness.

Learn to bless God in the bad times as well as the good. Either way, God works all things for your good. Patient endurance of suffering may very well be the work that attends your entrance into heaven and causes others to rejoice with thanksgiving to God.

 

Pastor V. Mark Smith

 

God’s Works Remembered

Berean Baptist on November 6, 2017

He hath made his wonderful works to be remembered: the LORD is gracious and full of compassion.

(Psalms 111:4)

As I was thinking on the 111th psalm, verse 4 reminded me of a negative application of the same thought in 2 Peter 1:9:  But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins. The psalmist said God has made His work to be remembered while Peter said the one who does not care to build on his faith by adding Christian graces will soon forget the mighty works that God has done in his life.

I think it is interesting how many times the Old Testament retells the story of Israel’s deliverance from Egypt. I have commented on this before from other psalms and scripture texts, and here we find it again in more subtle references in the 111th psalm. It seems the crowning achievement of all God’s wonderful works for His people is how God humbled the defiant Egyptian Pharaoh and brought His people out with a mighty strong arm. He brought them through the perils of the wilderness and gave them the land promised to Abraham. This is reflected in verse 6: He hath shewed his people the power of his works, that he may give them the heritage of the heathen. The scriptures continue to remind of this fact so that Israel would never lose the assurance that God was on their side and would always fulfill His promises to them.

The same is true for the Christian today. Our deliverance in the moment of our salvation when God broke through the stronghold sin had on our hearts is a grand touchstone to return to time and time again. God brought us into the marvelous light of the gospel of Christ and became the author of our eternal salvation. Like Israel’s remembrance of deliverance from Egypt, this is our place of remembrance of God’s wonderful works.

There is, however, another similarity between the 111th psalm and the quest for holiness in 2 Peter 1. Israel was taken into captivity because they forgot what God did for them. They were not careful to maintain their obedience which caused them to fall and to experience bitter chastisement. The Christian has the same propensity if he is not careful to maintain his focus on Christ. We will also fail and find ourselves back in the captivity of sin.

This is what Peter warns against in 2 Peter 1:9. The person who forgets that he was purged from his old sins will soon fall into those old sins again. We are doomed to repeat our past mistakes which is the exact problem with Israel. Old sins always yield the same results—it never changes. The loss of assurance is its fruit; when the fruit of the Christian life should be grace, peace, and the contentment of resting in God’s promises.

As I read the psalm and compared it to 2 Peter, I was also reminded how scripture says Old Testament stories were given to warn us not to fall in the same holes as Israel. We must guard ourselves and be diligent to add all spiritual graces. This is the sure method of never failing to remember God’s wonderful works. Look at the world around you and see the immensity of His power. And then, look into your heart once blackened by sin and see it cleansed by the gospel of Christ. Keep looking and you will never forget the joy of being purged from your old sins.

 

Pastor V. Mark Smith

Doomed to Repeat the Past

Berean Baptist on February 20, 2017

Psalm 78

In the 78th Psalm, we come to one of the many instances in which the history of Israel, the ups and downs of their relationship with God, is recounted. The purpose of these places is to teach that we must remember the failures of the past and to warn those who have not yet learned the lessons we have learned how to avoid the holes we have fallen into.

In dealing with the Corinthian church, Paul encouraged them to pay attention to Old Testament scriptures. They are not passé and of no benefit. Rather, he says in the 10th chapter that the experiences of Old Testament Israel were for our example. In Acts chapter 7, Stephen used the historical record to point out how the Jews of his time were no different from their forefathers. They claimed to be the righteous children of Abraham, but Stephen skillfully discovered to them they were certainly more like the children of Abraham than they cared to admit. At every turn, their forefathers continually rejected the grace of God and these more modern Jews were no different. They proved it when they crucified God’s own Son (Acts 7:51-52).

Psalm 78 can be rightly called a reminder of Deuteronomy 6:6-7:  “And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.” The power and might of God in taking Israel to the Promised Land were to be an incentive to follow faithfully. Whenever Israel failed, it was a direct result of disobedience, of stubbornness, and refusal to remember what happened each time they disobeyed.

I believe we find the same incentive in the New Testament in words that are written to Christians. Hebrews 12 speaks of chastisement which we strictly want to avoid, but who among us has not gone back to the same sins time and time again? Who learns the lesson well that the same sins always yield the same results? It seems we have great difficulty learning our lessons as if the holes we fall into are not hard enough at the bottom to make us want to keep from stepping into them again.

While there is no excuse for this, we do have to chalk it up to human nature. We surrender to the flesh rather than continually crucifying it with its affections and lusts (Gal. 5:24). If you wonder how Israel kept doing what they did after seeing the power of God to deliver them, just remember we fare no better. Many times the authors of scripture tell this story about Israel and many times we are challenged to be strong in the faith. Shouldn’t one chapter in one book of the New Testament be enough to keep us straight? Apparently not because encouragement to forsake the flesh and follow Christ is an often repeated theme.

God wants us to keep up the fight. We are not to surrender because the way is hard. Every temptation has a means of escape just as Paul described in 1 Corinthians 10. God knows we will fail—He understands us better than we do ourselves. For this reason, He offers forgiveness rather than condemnation. As the Psalmist wrote in verses 38 and 39, God knows us: “But he, being full of compassion, forgave their iniquity, and destroyed them not: yea, many a time turned he his anger away, and did not stir up all his wrath. For he remembered that they were but flesh; a wind that passeth away, and cometh not again.”

Thank God His compassion is deeper than our holes. When we repeat the past, His forgiveness is there. When we come in confession and repentance, He never fails to forgive. In our flesh, we may be doomed to repeat the past, but the blessing of our salvation is in Christ. He took the blame for us for which we will be eternally grateful.

 

Pastor V. Mark Smith