Psalm 75 - 2008.12.27

"The earth and all the inhabitants thereof are dissolved: I bear up the pillars of it. I said unto the fools, Deal not foolishly: and to the wicked, Lift not up the horn: Lift not up your horn on high: speak not with a stiff neck." ―Psalm 75:3-5

Our nugget for today begins on a prophetic note, anticipating the dissolution of this planet and its proud and rebellious occupants: "The earth and all the inhabitants thereof are dissolved." When and how are not here defined, but the word "dissolved" takes the informed reader immediately to II Peter 3:9-12 ―

"The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?"

Here is the New Testament expansion on this obscure Old Testament passage. There is a terrible day coming when the Lord of glory will execute judgment on this fallen race. All that prevents it from happening today is the grace of God, Who is "not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentence." Modern science has made remarkable progress in discovering what the creation is made of, but no one yet understands the "glue" (if I may say it reverently) that holds it all together. No one, that is, but the bible believer who recognizes the authority disclosed in Hebrews 1:1-3, where the Lord Jesus Christ is recognized as the Heir and the Author of this creation (v.2) and the One who even now holds it all together "by the word of His power" (v.3). That is in agreement with the statement in our passage for today, "I bear up the pillars of [the earth]," and identifies the Spokesman. Let Him speak another word, let Him withdraw His sustaining power, and the whole creation will, indeed, "dissolve."

He created it by His word (Psalm 33:6), He sustains it by "the word of His power," and one day He will speak a word and bring it all to fiery dissolution!

But with that word of warning comes the manifestation of His grace: "I said unto the fools, Deal not foolishly: and to the wicked, Lift not up the horn: Lift not up your horn on high: speak not with a stiff neck." Though God is "angry with the wicked every day," (Psalm 7:11b), He has not yet abandoned them. (Christmas attests to that!) Here, so long before the manger, the spirit of God pleads with fools (who say in their hearts there is no God, (Ps. 14:1; 53:1)) to abandon their folly and turn to Him. And He warns the proud and stubborn rebel "…speak not with a stiff neck." There is an echo of this in Prov. 29:1, "He, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy."

Christmas and Easter remind us that we have a merciful God. Passages in scripture such as the one before us today remind us that there is a limit to His patience. Sometime later the Lord extends His plea again through the prophet Isaiah, "Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon[Isa. 1:6-7]."

"The earth is the LORD'S, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein [Ps.. 24:1]." Sooner or later every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God. Why not do it now, when it can eventuate in eternal salvation, rather in the day of judgment when it will preface eternal loss? What better way to begin the new year than to surrender to the Lord of glory and enter the gate that leads to "Life" with a capital "L"?

"Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which Pπ unto life, and few there be that find it [Mat. 7:13-14]."

For His glory and our good,

"Pastor" Frasier

…and in HIS Name, a blessed Christmas and new year to all

HIS NAME

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given:
and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his NAME shall be called

Wonderful,
Counsellor,
The Mighty God,
The Everlasting Father,
The Prince of Peace.
Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign;
Behold, a virgin shal conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his NAME
Immanuel.
***

And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name
JESUS:
for he shall save his people from their sins
***

Christ Jesus:
…being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:
But made himself of no reputation,
and took upon Him the form of a servant
And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself,
and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him

a name which is above every name:

That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth;
And that every tongue should confess that
Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
***

The NAME of the LORD
is a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it, and is safe
****

Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is
none other name
under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.
(Acts 4:12)

IN HIM may you have a truly BLESSED CHRISTmas and New Year!

~ “Pastor” Frasier ~

Psalm 74 - 2008.12.20

"The day is thine, the night also is thine: thou hast prepared the light and the sun. Thou hast set all the borders of the earth: thou hast made summer and winter." —Psalm74:16-17

Israel had suffered the ravages of her enemies, and that for so long a time that the writer pleads, "Why hast thou cast us off for ever? why doth Thine anger smoke against the sheep of Thy pasture?" (v.1) The pitch darkness of a moonless, starless night plunged the people of God into perplexity and despair. It was a spiritual experience not unlike the temporal one Luke describes in Acts 27:20, "And when nether sun nor stars in many days appeared, and no small tempest lay on us, all hope that we should be saved was then taken away."

It is not unlikely that someone who will read this today will feel a kinship with this situation. God seems far away; the enemy has overwhelmed your soul and there is no help in sight. God's hand is in His bosom, not outstretched to your aid, and the heart cries "O God, how long …?" (See vss. 9-11) The temptation is to give up on God, but to do so is to be left with neither an anchor nor a sail. As the poet put it, "Where could I go, but to the Lord?" And it is from that point of desperation that the Holy Spirit inspired the sacred writer to make the observations of our "nugget" for today.

"The day is Thine, the night also is Thine." God owns the universe, and everything is under His control. When it is "day," we see Him and rejoice in the evidences of His presence and power exercised in our behalf. When it is "night," what one has called "the dark night of the soul," we see Him not and are tempted to think He has abandoned us. But, He is the Lord of every circumstance. As the Psalmist puts it in another place, "If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee [Ps. 39:11-12]." We may be unable to see Him, but He sees us, Who also said, "I will never leave thee nor forsake thee."

"Thou hast set all the borders of the earth." As God defines the limits of the oceans and shorelines of the continents so that however fierce the storm, the sea may alter to a degree the shorelines but will never overwhelm the dry land, so He sets the limits of the storms of life that they will not overwhelm us. "For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness. Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby [Heb. 12:6-11]."

"Thou hast made summer and winter." As there are seasons in nature, so are there seasons in grace. Winter comes, and seems as though it will never end. But summer is waiting in the wings and when it is time, will come again. So in the spiritual realm. There are those times when in God's peculiar wisdom He exposes us to the seemingly interminable and intolerable blasts of the "winter" of the soul. But, He who makes the winter will make summer again in His own time.

"O deliver not the soul of thy turtledove unto the multitude of the wicked: forget not the congregation of thy poor for ever. Have respect unto the covenant…" pleads the burdened writer (v. 19-20a) and we may do the same when "night" and "winter" seem unending. And the covenant is this "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow Me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand. My Father, which gave them Me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of My Father's hand. I and My Father are one [John. 10:28-30]."

For His glory and our good,

"Pastor" Frasier

Psalm 73 - 2008.12.13

"For I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked… Until I went into the sanctuary of God; then understood I their end" —Psalm 73:3,17

It is not often that we select our "Nugget," in this fashion, but in this instance it will best serve our purpose to do so, and the reader is advised to give careful attention as well to the verses in between, which describe the Psalmist's struggle with the "the prosperity of the wicked," which may be a timely subject for our consideration. The depth of that struggle may be appreciated by noting v.16, "When I thought to know [understand] this, it was too painful for me…"

What we must note is the condition that gives rise to this consternation; it is his contemplation of the cultural phenomenon. His observation of the prosperity of the wicked was not merely in passing, but had become a fixed focus, with dire results: "But as for me, me feet were almost gone; my steps had well night slipped (v.2)." He lingered over the situation long enough to be nearly consumed by it. In our day it is almost impossible to ignore the strange ways of the culture around us, given the presence and power of the media, but we need desperately to be aware of the danger of allowing the world around us to consume our time and fill our minds.

While transfixed by the prosperity of the wicked the psalmist went into an emotional tailspin that took him nearly to the destruction of his faith. "Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocency (v.13). Translated into our time frame, he is saying, "It doesn't pay to be a Christian."

So, where does deliverance come from? "Until I went into the sanctuary of God." It was, in other words, in the place where God revealed Himself that the psalmist found the ability to put things in proper perspective. For you and me that "sanctuary" has to be the scriptures. Unfortunately, God may or may not be found in the local church, given the state of the church today, but He has ever revealed Himself in his word, and it is through "the word of God and prayer" that we can find deliverance from the perplexities which confront us in a world out of order, and where as often as not things "just don't add up."

Strong emphasis must be placed on the word "until." His struggle continued until he went into the sanctuary. As long as he lingered on the fringes and focused on the world, there was not only no relief, but a worsening of the situation, and so will it be for you and me.

It was in the sanctuary that he discovered the answer, when there was revealed to him "their end." It is not how much we have, but how much we will have left when we stand before God that measures true wealth. "Surely Thou didst set them in slippery places: Thou castest them down into destruction (v.18)." It is in the word of God that we discover Jesus' saying, "Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth [Luke 12:15]." And again, "A little that a righteous man hath is better than the riches of many wicked. [Ps. 37:16]." The man who, in Jesus' parable, had to buiild bigger barns to store all his worldly goods could have carried his spirituial wealth in a change purse with room to spare!

Let us then be mindful of the importance of fixing our focus not on the world, but upon the Lord and His word so that we may keep things in proper perspective from the divine point of view. In the New Testament context, we are to "look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal[II Cor. 4:18]."

"Though the wicked are in prosperity, and are not in trouble as other men; yet the godly, though in affliction, are in a state infinitely better, because they have God for their portion. They need desire nothing else: he that hath God hath all." —Spurgeon

In the interest of true riches,

"Pastor" Frasier

Psalm 72 - 2008.12.06

"He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass: as showers that water the earth. In his days shall the righteous flourish; and abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth. He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth." - Psalm 72:6-8

This Psalm begins with reference to the king and the king's Son (v.1.) Many interpret it as referring to David (the king) and Solomon (the king's son.) The scope of what follows, however, is so vast that it becomes immediately clear to the enlightened reader that much more is involved in the Divine intent. Surely the ultimate application is to God, of Whom the Psalmist writes in another place, e.g., "God is the King of all the earth [Ps. 47:7], and to His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, Who is called elsewhere "King of kings and Lord of Lords."

It is from that perspective, then, that we approach our meditation on the "nugget" we have selected for our meditation today. And given that perspective, it is evident that the things which are here affirmed must refer to the return of our Savior; a subject not inappropriate as we prepare (as believers!) to commemorate His first coming.

Note first the promise of His coming. "He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass: as showers that water the earth." It is a delightful picture that reminds me of the hymn. "There Shall be Showers of Blessing." It is a scorched earth that will be left behind when the savior comes to "judge the world in righteousness," but here He comes to refresh it. It will be the fulfillment of the psalmist's (and every believer's) longing, "O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is; To see thy power and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary [Ps. 63:1-2]." He will come not in a torrent which, like the flood of Noah, sweeps everything before it, but with gentle showers of refreshment and renewal.

In fact, that leads us to the prospect which immediately follows: "In His days shall the righteous flourish; and abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth." What a day that will be, when the "King's Son" takes His throne. All that makes this world vulgar and vile and violent will be forever banished. Here is the fulfillment of the Divine plea through Isaiah, "Drop down, ye heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness: let the earth open, and let them bring forth salvation, and let righteousness spring up together; I the LORD have created it [Isa. 45:8]." Then, and not until then, will the earth know universal peace and tranquillity. "They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea [Isa. 11:9]."

Until He returns, "…the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing/ The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us [Ps. 2:1-3]." But then there will be "abundance of peace," the terms of which will never be broken.

And finally, there is the province of the King. "He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth." Oh, glorious day! "Thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and thy dominion endureth throughout all generations [Ps. 145:13]." Then will it be made manifest that "the earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof."

Beloved, the bedrock upon which all this rests is set before us in Paul's commentary, "But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming. Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death [I Cor 15:20-26]."

Rejoice, Christian; the King is coming!! "For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry (i.e., "will not be late") [Hab. 2:3]."

"Jesus shall reign wher'er the sun Does his successive journeys run;
His kingdom stretch from shore to shore, Till moons shall wax and wane no more."
Isaac Watts

With Light for dark days,

"Pastor" Frasier