In a similar vein to my last post, through all hazards and difficulties … Forward! Be Our Watchword, I’m bringing further encouragements for us to persevere by faith and trust in the power of God to empower and sustain us in the work He has for us, no matter our circumstances.

I’m starting off here with an excerpt from the “Memoir, Select Thoughts and Sermons of the Late Rev. Edward Payson, Volume 1″ by Edward Payson (1783-1827) and Asa Cummings, 329-330 (emphasis mine). Though Payson’s words are written to a man called to the ministry of Gospel preaching, they are applicable to any believer who is struggling with pressing on in obedience to the will of God in the face of great temptations and difficulties.

To a brother, who shrunk from his duty, through depression of mind, and an erroneous opinion of his own qualifications for the ministry.  Lest any should use the authority of Dr. Payson’s name to urge men to assume the sacred office without the requisite qualifications, it ought to be stated, that the person addressed in the following letter, besides possessing decided piety, had passed through a regular course of preparatory studies at a theological seminary:

“My dear brother:  Your letter found me more than ordinarily hurried; but I feel it to be so important that you should be licensed this fall, that I must snatch a moment to answer it.  Your feelings, as you describe them, are just like mine, only less aggravated by long continuance.  I mention this that you may pay more regard to my advice.  I am as certain that it is best for you to take license immediately, as I can be of any thing.   Rely upon it, that, if you delay, your difficulties will increase, and you will feel more and more as if it as impossible to preach.  Your only safety lies in placing yourself in circumstances which will make exertion necessary, and which will secure divine assistance.  Never mind your infirmities.  You have nothing to do with them.  Your business is to trust, and go forward.  If you wait till the sea becomes land, you will never walk on it.  You must leave the ship, and, like Peter, set your feet upon the waves, and you will find them marble.  Christ is a good Master.  He won’t suffer you to sink; and you will, at length, glory in your infirmities.  I would not give up the precious proofs which I have received, in consequence of my weakness, of his power, faithfulness, and love, for all the comforts of good health.  But be assured, that, if you remain as you are, Satan will weave a net round you, which you will never break.  Every mental and religious effort will become more difficult and painful; your mind will be like the body of a rickety child; you will live a burden to yourself and friend, and die without the consolation of having been made useful.  This would infallibly have been my fate, had I not been thrust into the ministry before I well knew what I was about.  Yet you see I have, somehow or other, been carried along, and so will you be.  Do not then, my dear, dear brother, stand hesitating.  A feeble, nervous man must not deliberate, but act; for his deliberation will not be worth a straw, but his activity may be, and probably will be, useful both to himself and others.

“When Christ told his disciples to feed the multitude with five loaves, they did not hesitate, and say, Lord, let us first see the bread multiplied; if we begin and have not enough, we shall be put to shame; but they distributed what they had, and it increased with the distribution. So you will find it.  You just, therefore, go forward.  There is no reason why you should not.  If you delay, indolence will steal upon you, and bind you in chains, which you will never break.

“I charge you, then, before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, to be up and doing. There are fifty places in this State [Maine], where the most unconnected things, which your lips could utter, would do good, and be well received.  You have no conception by what apparently feeble means God often works wonders.  Let the next tidings I hear from you be, that you have crossed the Rubicon; or, rather, let me see you here forthwith, in the character of a preacher.”

    
From Richard Baxter’s “The Reformed Pastor”:

The great advantage of ministers having a sincere heart, is this, that the glory of God and the salvation of souls are their very end; and where that end is truly intended, no labor or suffering will stop them, or turn them back; for a man must have his end, whatever it cost him. Whatever he forgets, he will still retain this lesson: One thing is needful; seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. Hence he says, ‘Necessity is laid upon me, yea, woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel.’ This is it that will most effectually make easy all our labors, and make light all our burdens, and make tolerable all our sufferings, and cause us to venture on any hazards, if we may only win souls to Christ. That which I once made the motto of my colors in another warfare, I desire may be still before my eyes in this; which yet, according to my intentions, is not altogether another. On one side ‘He that saveth his life shall lose it.” – on the other, ‘Ruin not the cause for the sake of keeping one’s life.’ He who knoweth that he serveth a God that will never suffer any man to be a loser by him, need not fear what hazards he runs in his cause: and he who knows that he seeks a prize, which, if obtained, will infinitely overbalance his cost, may boldly engage his whole estate on it, and sell all to purchase so rich a pearl.

From Andrew Fuller’s sermon, “The Instances, the Evil Nature, and the Dangerous Tendency of Delay, in the Concerns of Religion,” preached at Clipstone, England, April 27, 1791. Fuller’s Scripture text was Haggai 1:2 “Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, This people say, The time is not come, the time that the Lord’s house should be built.”

We see many things that should be done; but there are difficulties in the way, and we wait for the removal of these difficulties. We are very apt to indulge a kind of prudent caution, (as we call it,) which foresees and magnifies difficulties beyond what they really are. It is granted there may be such things in the way of an undertaking as may render it impracticable; and, in that case, it is our duty for the present to stand still; but it becomes us to beware lest we account that impracticable which only requires such a degree of exertion as we are not inclined to give it. Perhaps the work requires expense; and Covetousness says, Wait a little longer, till I have gained so and so in trade, till I have rendered my circumstances respectable, and settled my children comfortably in the world. But is not this like ceiling our own houses, while the house of God lies waste? Perhaps it requires concurrence; and we wait for every body to be of a mind, which is never to be expected. He who through a dread of opposition and reproach desists from known duty is in danger of being found among the “fearful, the unbelieving, and the abominable.”

Had Luther and his contemporaries acted upon this principle, they had never gone about the glorious work of the Reformation. When he saw the abominations of popery, he might have said, These things ought not to be; but what can I do? If the chief priests and rulers in different nations would but unite, something might be effected; but what can I do, an individual, and a poor man? I may render myself an object of persecution, or, which is worse, of universal contempt; and what good end will be answered by it? Had Luther reasoned thus — had he fancied that, because princes and prelates were not the first to engage in the good work, therefore the time was not come to build the house of the Lord — the house of the Lord, for any thing he had done, might have lain waste to this day.

Instead of waiting for the removal of difficulties, we ought, in many cases, to consider them as purposely laid in our way, in order to try the sincerity of our religion. He who had all power in heaven and earth could not only have sent forth his apostles into all the world, but have so ordered it that all the world should treat them with kindness, and aid them in their mission; but, instead of that, he told them to lay their accounts with persecution and the loss of all things. This was no doubt to try their sincerity; and the difficulties laid in our way are equally designed to try ours.

Let it be considered whether it is not owing to this principle that so few and so feeble efforts have been made for the propagation of the gospel in the world. When the Lord Jesus commissioned his apostles, he commanded them to go and teach “all nations,” to preach the gospel to “every creature;” and that notwithstanding the difficulties and oppositions that would he in the way. The apostles executed their commission with assiduity and fidelity; but, since their days, we seem to sit down half contented that the greater part of the world should still remain in ignorance and idolatry. Some noble efforts have indeed been made; but they are small in number, when compared with the magnitude of the object. And why is it so? Are the souls of men of less value than heretofore? No. Is Christianity less true or less important than in former ages? This will not be pretended. Are there no opportunities for societies, or individuals, in Christian nations, to convey the gospel to the heathens? This cannot be pleaded so long as opportunities are found to trade with them, yea, and (what is a disgrace to the name of Christians) to buy them, and sell them, and treat them with worse than savage barbarity! We have opportunities in abundance: the improvement of navigation, and the maritime and commercial turn of this country, furnish us with these; and it deserves to be considered whether this is not a circumstance that renders it a duty peculiarly binding on us.

From Matthew Henry’s Complete Commentary on Exodus 14…

They thought they must have been directed either to the right hand or to the left. “No,” says God, “speak to them to go forward, directly to the sea-side;” as if there had lain a fleet of transport-ships ready for them to embark in. Note, When we are in the way of our duty, though we met with difficulties, we must go forward, and not stand in mute astonishment; we must mind present work and then leave the even to God, use means and trust him with the issue.

Hans Jordaens (III) – Le passage de la Mer Rouge (Crossing of the Red Sea)

Forward! Be Our Watchword
(Henry Alford, 1871)

Forward! be our watchword, steps and voices joined;
Seek the things before us, not a look behind;
Burns the fiery pillar at our army’s head;
Who shall dream of shrinking, by our Captain led?
Forward through the desert, through the toil and fight;
Jordan flows before us; Zion beams with light.

Forward! When in childhood buds the infant mind;
All through youth and manhood not a thought behind;
Speed through realms of nature, climb the steps of grace;
Faint not, till in glory, gleams our Father’s face.
Forward, all the lifetime, climb from height to height,
Till the head be hoary, till the eve be light.

Forward! flock of Jesus, salt of all the earth,
Till each yearning purpose spring to glorious birth:
Sick, they ask for healing; blind, they grope for day;
Pour upon the nations wisdom’s loving ray.
Forward, out of error, leave behind the night;
Forward through the darkness, forward into light!

Glories upon glories hath our God prepared,
By the souls that love Him one day to be shared;
Eye hath not beheld them, ear hath never heard;
Nor of these hath uttered thought or speech a word;
Forward, marching eastward, where the heaven is bright,
Till the veil be lifted, till our faith be sight.

Far o’er yon horizon rise the city towers
Where our God abideth; that fair home is ours:
Flash the streets with jasper, shine the gates with gold;
Flows the gladdening river shedding joys untold.
Thither, onward, thither, in the Spirit’s might;
Pilgrims to your country, forward into light!

Into God’s high temple, onward as we press,
Beauty spreads around us, born of holiness;
Arch, and vault, and carving, lights of varied tone,
Softened words and holy, prayer and praise alone.
Every thought upraising to our city bright,
Where the tribes assemble round the throne of light.

Naught that city needeth of these aisles of stone;
Where the Godhead dwelleth, temple there is none;
All the saints that ever in these courts have stood,
Are but babes, and feeding on the children’s food.
On through sign and token, stars amidst the night,
Forward through the darkness, forward into light.

To th’eternal Father loudest anthems raise;
To the Son and Spirit echo songs of praise;
To the Lord of glory, blessed Three in One,
Be by men and angels endless honor done.
Weak are earthly praises, dull the songs of night:
Forward into triumph, forward into light!

Blessed is the man whose strength is in You, Whose heart is set on pilgrimage.

As they pass through the Valley of Baca, They make it a spring; The rain also covers it with pools.

They go from strength to strength; Each one appears before God in Zion.

(Psalm 84:5-7)

Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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As I’ve written previously (see here and here), I’ve landed in Psalm 84 (my references here are to the NKJV, I know the phrasing in other versions is a bit different) and have been trying to prepare some lessons from that for a women’s group at our church, but it’s been going a bit slowly. For one reason, almost every day, I keep finding more that applies to the Psalm since it deals with such large themes in the Christian life. I’m really only through the first four verses (more or less), and though the pace has been a bit frustrating at times, I am absolutely loving digging into the Psalm!

I keep saying I could pretty much answer anyone’s concerns about the Christian life from this Psalm. Well, perhaps not quite, but these twelve verses of Scripture do cover a pretty wide range of territory and touch on some really meaty themes.

Off my head, here’s a little summary…

First off, an overview of the whole Psalm – the Christian life as pilgrimage. This is key. As soon as we miss this, we may as well say we’ve not really begun and we’re going to fall. We’ve got to keep our heart on pilgrimage (v. 5) and our eyes fixed on Jesus and on things above, like the men and women of faith in Hebrews 11. We’re not going to finish with the race with joy if we’re not looking at the big picture and looking to the final destination. And so, Lesson 1: The Christian Life as a Pilgrimage.

And then in verse 1 we read the Psalmist proclaiming the LOVELINESS of God’s tabernacles and then moves into the courts of the LORD and finally the psalmist Himself says his heart and flesh are crying out for the living God. In other words, the psalmist has come to see God Himself as altogether lovely. Lesson 2: The LOVELINESS of Christ. Do we see God in the ways the Psalmist does? Do we have that overriding passion to be with Him? Do we know a sense of God’s loveliness, like the Shulamite woman in the Song of Solomon, or like Jonathan Edwards described: we can know the concept that honey is sweet, but have we TASTED it – to know it IS sweet indeed?!

Then we have the Psalmist referring to God at the end of verse 2 as the LIVING GOD. How many years of being a Christian did I really have any sense of “the LIFE of God in the soul of man” (using Henry Scougal’s words there, his book with the same title)? A whole host of things on what it means our God is a living God, e.g. – our relationship to Him, our communion with Him, His desire to communicate to us, His life in us to help us to live sanctified lives, to be holy as He is holy, etc. That’s Lesson 3: The LIVING God.

As you know, I love books and one set of books I’ve stumbled onto (thank you, google books) is Joseph Addison Alexander‘s Psalms Translated and Explained (Vol. 1 (Ps 1-50), Vol. 2 (Ps 51-99), Vol. 3 (Ps 101-150) This is not really a commentary but an amplification of the Hebrew, and I’ve loved reading through Alexander on just a few of the Psalms. I don’t know about you, but when I read there are always a few choice words, phrases or sentences that keep at you, things that just won’t leave you alone and you carry with you. For me, there are Alexander’s words about the living God (re: Psalm 84:2 – “My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.”): “The Living God, really existing, and the giver of life to others.” Really existing! Do we live our lives like He’s really existing? How do our churches show He’s really existing? Do we understand He alone is the giver of life to others? What are we doing with the life He’s given us? And so on.

Then verses 3 and 4 of Psalm 84 teach us of the full assurance of our salvation in Jesus Christ and the ongoing rest available to us as Christians, something I keep seeing people missing out on. We see there the wonderful picture of the sparrow finding a home and the swallow a nest. O, by grace through faith, if we are Christ’s, we are already safe in the nest, we have found that home in the bosom of the Beloved! This is the lesson I’ve been working on lately: our peace with God – our justification, no fear in judgment, no condemnation in Christ, our standing as accepted in the Beloved, and then our ongoing peace in Christ – assurance of our sanctification and our trust in His sovereignty at all times and in all circumstances ~ Philippians 4, that nothing can separate us from His love (end of Romans 8), the joy and peace the God of hope wants us to have in believing. Also, that picture of the swallow laying her young in the nest reflects the assurance that we can cast our cares on God, for He cares for us, and so all our requests, all our “young,” we can trust Him with absolutely each and every one of them. As we find that Sabbath Rest in Jesus Christ, and as we rest in that rest, in His yoke, how can we not be blessed and praising our God (v. 4)! God doesn’t want His children to be miserable, He wants us to be blessed with such assurance, and then as we are blessed we will praise Him! Our blessing is for His blessing and the blessing of others. So, that would be a couple lessons on the God of REST and PEACE.

I struggled with assurance years after I was saved, as I came to see my total depravity and was plagued by my sins, guilt and failures. No, I didn’t think I would lose my salvation, but I had no real and true sense of Christ’s peace or rest as I kept churning around my sins and failures over and over and over again. That’s one reason I’ve written so much about assurance & fighting for joy on my other site. The other reason, as I already alluded to, is that I keep finding people who are struggling with having a settled assurance of God’s love, and, as a result, they lack any sense of His peace and rest. So the topic continues to hit home with me over and over again.

That’s about as far as I’ve gotten in my preparations, though I’ve been dipping ahead into the following verses about God as our strength, and going from strength to strength, verses I’ve loved for a while now.

As far as the study and the preparations are concerned, I’d appreciate your prayers for focus, since I’ve usually got a lot of thoughts in my head constantly about a lot of things! Our elders have been absolutely lovely about it, and our pastor so encouraging; I spoke with him a little over a week ago. I have three outlines pretty done and am almost finished with the fourth. And then we’ll see how it all unfolds. Please pray for God to put it into the heart of the women whom He is calling to delve into the living reality of Christ to come to the study. And, as always happens, when you do preparation like this, you are more blessed than you can imagine you would be, which is the case with me, in spite of the frustrations, the slow pace and so forth. I feel it a great blessing and privilege to know God and then to be able to study His Word and be allowed to speak of Him and write of Him is icing on the cake, so to speak!

In addition to the Bible, I always have a small passel of books I’m dipping into. (Small passel – oxymoron, right? )

I’ve read through Daniel Webber’s “William Carey and the Missionary Journey” (Banner of Truth Trust) a couple times. (I posted it on it recently on my other site here.) It’s a short book (116 pages), so that’s not saying very much that I read it through a couple times.

As I mentioned those words of Alexander that have remained with me, there were some things that Webber wrote about Carey that also continue to stick with me in my heart. Carey had a great God-given passion for missions, which was pretty much non-existent in the evangelical churches of the day, due to hyper-Calvinism.

Here’s the account Webber gives of a minister’s meeting in Northampton (England) in 1786 (p. 15);

And then Webber continues to describe Carey, the “passionate advocate of world mission”:

And later (p. 45) Webber adds that

The portions I continue to come back to are “discouraged but not dissuaded,” “preached about it to his little flock,” “the indifference of others around him did not stop Carey from seeking to rouse the apathetic,” and “a wild and impracticable scheme, but he continued undaunted.”

I run into discouragement regularly, it’s one of my worst enemies – and I’ll add it’s mostly discouragement from my own flesh, and yet I’m not dissuaded or daunted in the end. I keep coming back. I know that’s by the grace of God alone. I would have quit long ago, but by God’s mercies to me. As Lloyd-Jones once said, “I would have been dead long ago if I had depended upon men for encouragement.” That’s exactly it! Though other people can be an encouragement to us at times, our ultimate sustenance comes from God alone. We’ve got to go back to The Vine.

I’m no pastor, and I don’t preach in that sense, but I’m part of a little flock of people God has brought together who have a passion to see the Church revived and return to reclaim her birthright as children of God. Therefore, whomever God gives ears to hear or or eyes to read, Lord willing and by His strengthening, I’ll keep speaking and writing. The concept that God might bring something good out of this Nazareth, this blogging community is certainly a wild and impracticable scheme, wouldn’t you say? But isn’t that just how God operates – delighting to use the foolish, weak and base things of the world time and time again to spark revival in the Church, all so He alone might receive all the praise, honor and glory! Hallelujah! He reigns. Our God is in the heavens. He does all He pleases!

I’m no William Carey by any means, and at this point I have no calling to world missions directly, but rather in some sense to rouse the apathetic in the lukewarm Church to the reality of that lovely and living God I described above, to help others begin to see the all-surpassing excellencies of Christ. On my other blog and in my conversations with people, I keep speaking about the abundant life Christ wants us to have. I do this because when you begin to get a taste of the loveliness and life of God, just a drop of that Living Water or a morsel of the True Bread, you won’t remain the same, and you can’t remain apathetic about God’s glory and God’s Gospel and the condition of God’s Church and world missions. I’ve come to see this living reality of Jesus Christ as true wellspring of evangelism. A revived Church will want to give out God’s Word. They won’t have to be manipulated by men to go out or have to be put on a guilt trip to evangelize, the Spirit will do His work in God’s people and give them the overwhelming desire to make Christ known as they come to know Him as their all-satisfying portion and great reward. This has been part of my journey over the past few years. I was seeking assurance of forgiveness because I was absolutely miserable and ineffective and paralyzed in so many ways. Little did I know where that journey would lead! Now I am seeking revival in the Church. I had no real interest in it, though I knew there was something not right about the Church, but didn’t have the right way to understand it, so I started dabbling in emergent/missional theology, but then, thank God, I landed straight into Reformed doctrine, primarily through Lloyd-Jones’ commentary on First John “Life in Christ.” I had no real interest in evangelism or world mission, and now I’m finally beginning to. Yes, I confess just beginning. But, as Jesus said in John 7, if we are thirsty and we come to Him and drink of Him, the streams will flow. As you begin to know, to experientially know, that loveliness and life of God, you can’t help but want others to know of it – of Him – the God who is altogether lovely, the living God! Come and see! Taste and see the Lord is good! The Spirit and the bride say, “Come, all who are thirsty!”

For those of you who don’t know, besides my naphtali_deer site, I have a site devoted to revival prayer, tent_of_meeting. If you are burdened over the condition of the Church today, I invite you to visit there. I don’t post there as much as I used to, but I still do on occasion. God’s means of reviving the Church have always been through prayer and the ministry of the Word. (You can read more about my passion, vision and holy ambition here, here, here and here.)

Thank you for reading and for your friendship and prayers. My desire is that God might use my words to encourage those of you who are Christians and spur you on to serve in the Body of Christ, and particularly in your local congregation, or in missions, wherever God may be leading you. If there’s any way I can assist you, please comment below and/or message me.

Yours in Christ’s love, for His glory in the Church,
Karen

Habakkuk 2:14.