Peter Misselbrook's Blog

Dec 22 2019 - Psalm 145 – The Lord faithful to his promises

This is a wonderful psalm of praise attributed to David. He is determined to praise God not only each day of his life, but to praise him for ever and ever. And he gives reasons for his praise.

Firstly, the Lord is great. When David says this he is not using the word in the watered down sense in which we often use it. When we are told that the item we have set our hearts on is in stock and available in the shop to which we have gone to purchase it we may say, "That's great!" When someone you love dresses up for a special event you may tell her/him, "You look great!" But God is great in a far greater way than this. "His greatness", David says, "no one can fathom" (v. 3). He is the creator of heaven and earth "of all that is seen and is unseen". The greatness of his power is beyond our imagination. And, as we have seen previously from Psalm 139, he is great in his knowledge of us and of every circumstance that affects our lives.

But above all, David wants to celebrate the great things that God has done for his people. He thinks of the way in which each generation of God's people has passed on to the next the stories of what God has done. So the story of the Exodus was celebrated and passed on through the family celebration of the Passover, and God's care of his people in the wilderness was celebrated annually in the feast of Tabernacles. As the Scriptures were read, each new generation learned afresh of all that God had done for them. Nor was this dispassionate book learning; each generation would commend the great works of God to their children, speaking of the glorious splendour and majesty of the living God and the great deeds and wonderful works he had done. Together they would celebrate God's abundant goodness and joyfully sing of his righteousness.

Later David says, "The Lord is trustworthy in all he promises and faithful in all he does" (v. 13). We know of God's faithfulness to his promises. We have been reading our way through the Old Testament and have seen time and time again how it points us forward to the Lord Jesus Christ. And Christ has come. Out of love for his lost and damaged world, God sent us his Son to live among us. He came to show us the character and love of God and at last take upon himself the burden of our sin and rebellion. Through him we have been given eternal life and been brought to know God as our heavenly Father who cares for us with a love beyond words.

God's great love for us in the Lord Jesus surely makes us want to praise him every day and throughout eternity. Surely it moves us to share with generations following us the awesome things God has done for our salvation. We also want to tell of the glory of God's kingdom which is an everlasting kingdom and of the dominion of our Lord Jesus Christ that shall endure through all generations. We want to bear testimony to the discoveries we have made – that the Lord is near to all who call on him, he hears their cry and saves them. We will want to tell of the ways in which he fulfils the desires of those who fear him and watches over those who love him.

All too often, our praise of God is a reflection of our feelings. When things go well with us we feel in a mood to praise God but when we are struggling with life, facing disappointments or real difficulties, our capacity for praise seems to dry up. David's determination to praise God every day and then throughout eternity is grounded not in his own feelings but in God's great goodness and saving mercy. It may seem an easy thing to say, but I say it to myself just as much as I do to you, our praise should be our heartfelt and mindful response to what God has done for us in Jesus. Our God does not change – his mercies are new every morning. The Lord Jesus does not change – he is the same yesterday and today and forever. So our praise also should be new every morning and should animate every aspect of each day of our lives.

Lord God, by your Spirit, open my mind and heart to a continual awareness of your goodness and love towards me in the Lord Jesus Christ. Fill me with a spirit of praise and help me to tell those around me, especially the younger generations now growing up, of all that you have done for our salvation. So may they also come to know the riches of your love and speak of you in their turn.

Dec 22 2020 - Revelation 13:1-18 – The number of the beast

Many of us love trying to sort out puzzles of one sort or another, whether it is crosswords or Sudoku or even to see if we can work out 'who done it' in a murder story. John gives us a mystery at the end of Revelation 13 and presents us with a challenge: "This calls for wisdom. Let the person who has insight calculate the number of the beast ... That number is 666" (13:18).

This mystery has preoccupied many over the centuries. Candidates for the decoded number have proved legion, from the emperor Nero, through Napoleon to Hitler – not to mention the claim by many staunch Protestants that it is a reference to the Pope. In more recent times, some have suggested that the number has something to do with bar codes. And just to bring matters right up-to-date, one website even claims to be able to show that the man who bears the number 666 is Prince Charles.

Did John really intend such speculations? Were his words really so cryptic that none can fathom them? Perhaps the problem is one of translation. The section I missed out of the quotation above is often translated, "it is the number of a man", prompting speculations as to who that man might be. But a better translation might be "it is the number of man" – the number of mankind, the number of humanity. The number 6 is one short of 7, the number signifying perfection to the Hebrew mind (remember the 7 spirits of God). Humankind, made in the image of God, has fallen short of all that they were intended to be. 666 is an expression of triple fallenness – real, three dimensional depravity.

Revelation 13 is all about human power structures – the kingdom of the world. In John's day it describes the Roman Empire. (The beast with seven heads is a reflection of Rome built on seven hills and its ten horns symbolic of ten emperors. The second beast who promotes the worship of the first may be a picture of the priests of the Emperor cult.) But this picture is not applicable only to ancient Rome, it remains a description of all human empires and power structures ever since.

The description John gives is of powers which imitate and seek to supplant the power of God. The beast appears to have been slain but lives. The powers of human empire seal their subjects on the forehead (and on the right hand). They perform miraculous signs and call for worship from their subjects. In all these ways they imitate the kingdom of God. But whereas God's kingdom is marked by life and peace, the kingdom of this world is marked by brute force, violence, oppression and death.

"This calls for patient endurance and faithfulness on the part of God’s people" (13:10). We are called to faithful testimony and quiet patience in the confidence that the kingdom of this world shall become the kingdom of our God and of his Christ – and he will reign for ever and ever. We are not to try to establish his kingdom by the methods common to this world – by violence and by force – but by patient testimony in the face of oppression. Jesus Christ is Lord and he will reign. Other empires rise and fall; the only Empire on which the sun will never set is that of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Lord, give us wisdom to see the spiritual realities at work around us and in us. Give us patient endurance as we long for and pray for the coming of your kingdom – for the day when your will shall be done on earth as it is in heaven. Help us to remain faithful to you and faithful in our testimony to your kingdom of grace, mercy, peace and love.

Peter Misselbrook