Peter Misselbrook's Blog

Sep 15 2019 - Psalm 115 – Not to us be the glory

There is no one else like our God. He alone is the living God.

This psalm, like many other passages of the Old Testament, paints a vivid contrast between the idol-gods of the nations round about and the God of Israel. Idols may be made of precious metals and look impressive, but they are made by human hands and are no gods at all. They cannot hear the cry of those who pray to them nor can they speak a word in response or do anything to help them. They feel nothing and remain insensitive to the needs of their worshipers.

The nations around Israel mocked them saying, "Where is their God?" (v. 2). They could point to their own idols but the Israelites had no image of their God. The mockery of the Israelites' neighbours suggested that they had no god at all. But the psalmist answers that, unlike their useless idols, the Israelites' God is in heaven and is sovereign over the whole universe (v. 3). He alone is worthy of praise and adoration (v. 1).

This accusation that the people of the living God have no god at all was not confined to the Old Testament. The Romans called Jews and Christians "atheists" because they rejected the many gods venerated by Greece and Rome and had no image of their God in their temple. People seem to be more comfortable with gods that they can manage and control.

But what evidence do we have that our God is not also the creation of our own imagination? The psalmist remembers God's love and faithfulness (v. 1). God rescued his people from slavery in Egypt, cared for them despite their complaints and rebellion during forty years of wandering in the wilderness. God brought them safely to the land he had promised to give them as an inheritance and enabled them to take possession of it. All through their history, God has displayed his faithfulness and love. He is the help and shield of his people, the one in whom they can place all their trust (vv. 9-11).

And we have yet more evidence for the reality and goodness of our God. God loved us so much that he sent his own beloved Son into the world to be our Saviour. And, despite our complaints and rebellion, he continues to care for us and has given us the testimony of his love towards us by the Spirit he has given to us. God is also our help and shield; the one in whom we can confidently place all our trust. He will bring us safe to glory. God is good.

So, based on the testimony of God's love and faithfulness in the past, the psalmist prays for him to continue to pour out his blessings upon us and upon our children (vv. 14-15). May his blessing continue to flood the earth down the coming generations. And in response to such blessings, he calls us to praise the Lord. From the human perspective, we see that the voices of those we love are silenced by death. Hence the psalmist exhorts us to praise the Lord while we still have breath. We can expand this perspective with the words of the lovely hymn by Isaac Watts:

I'll praise my Maker while I've breath;
and when my voice is lost in death,
praise shall employ my nobler powers.
My days of praise shall ne'er be past,
while life, and thought, and being last,
or immortality endures.

Living God, help us to live lives marked by thankfulness and praise for all of your love and faithfulness shown towards us in the Lord Jesus and in the many blessings of this life. We echo the words of the psalmist: "Not to us, Lord, not to us but to your name be the glory, because of your love and faithfulness." May our lives bring glory to your name and bring your love and blessing to the lives of those around us.

Sep 15 2020 - Matthew 17:9-27 – The days of Elijah

Peter, James and John had been with Jesus on the mountain top and had seen him transformed – "His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light" (Matthew 17:2). They saw him speaking with Moses and Elijah and heard God's voice, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!" (17:5). Now, as they were coming down the mountain, Jesus instructs them not to tell anyone else of what they had seen, "until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead" (17:9).

Not surprisingly, the disciples are confused. They cannot understand what they have seen and they cannot work out how it all relates to the resurrection of the dead. They know that the resurrection of the dead will occur at the end of the age, when God finally comes to visit his people. On that day the dead will be raised and everyone will stand before the judgment seat of God. That day will mark the beginning of the age to come. But Elijah must come first. That's what the teachers of the law say, and in this they were only expounding what God himself has said in Malachi 4:5-6, "See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents; or else I will come and strike the land with total destruction." So the disciples ask Jesus, "Surely, Elijah must come first?"

Jesus does not contradict any of these assumptions; rather, he tells them that Elijah has already come. Elijah has come "and they did not recognize him, but have done to him everything they wished. In the same way the Son of Man is going to suffer at their hands" (17:12). The disciples then understand that Jesus is speaking of John the Baptist.

If John is the one who fulfils this prophecy concerning Elijah, then "the great and dreadful day of the Lord" is soon to follow. Judgment day, and the day of resurrection are about to appear. And in some way that the disciples just cannot understand, all of this is centred upon Jesus: he must suffer and die; he will be raised from the dead. He is God's Son, the Christ, who will bring in the age to come.

The disciples could not understand the things that Jesus was telling them – though they were to understand them later, when he had been raised from the dead. Sometimes we also seem slow to understand. These are not the days of Elijah. This is the day of the Lord, the one of whom Moses and the prophets had spoken. Christ has come; Christ has died; Christ is risen. In Christ, judgment day has come; resurrection day has arrived; the age to come has broken into the now of human history. All the world is called to listen to him, own him as Lord, trust in him and serve him.

Father God, you spoke to us in many ways and varied circumstances down the centuries. I thank you that you have now spoken to us through your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you that you have made me a child of the King. Help me to listen to him and to have faith in him. Enable my faith, though it be like a grain of mustard seed, to grow strong and true. Lord Jesus, help me to serve you through the power of your risen presence within me that I may minister your life, healing and freedom to those around me.

Peter Misselbrook