Scenes of Grace 11

Genesis 19, the scene of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, is one of those scenes of grace that many overlook.  They see it just as a scene of judgment, but it was much more.  Abraham had pleaded with God for the righteous to be spared the searing judgment of His wrath.  God was gracious to Abraham and acceded to his petition.  Lot, who the New Testament describes as a righteous man, was saved from the destruction that befell all the unjust in those two prominent cities.  God was gracious to Lot even though he lived among and was clearly tarnished by the sins around him. 

Eliza Morris has written a mostly forgotten hymn that covers both the grace shown to Abraham and the grace shown to Lot.  Her hymn is titled “God of Pity, God of Grace”.  She begins by asking God to hear our prayers as Abraham entreated God for the righteous who yet dwelled in Sodom.  This verse reads, “God of pity, God of grace, when we humbly seek Thy face, bend from Heav’n, Thy dwelling place; hear, forgive, and save.”  Her second verse picks up the theme and in the last two lines says, “Pleading at Thy mercy seat, look from Heav’n and save.”  The God of pity and grace did indeed hear the prayer of Abraham and in His marvelous pity and grace answered his prayer. 

As if seeing the whole scenario of Genesis 18 and 19 before her as she wrote, Eliza now turns to Lot.  In verse 4 of this extraordinarily beautiful hymn she writes, “Should we wander from Thy fold, and our love to Thee grow cold, with a pitying eye behold; Lord, forgive and save.”  Eliza knew that Lot was not alone in making bad choices.  We all do and we all need to fall on our Father’s loving grace to restore our pure fellowship with Him. 

Psalm 103:13 says, “Like as a father pities his children, so the LORD pities them that fear him.”  The publican stood in the temple and said, “Lord, be merciful to me a sinner.”  Paul wrote, “By grace you have been saved through faith.”  He also wrote, “Grace be unto you and peace.”  Eliza has captured in her hymn all these expressions of hope for the child of God.  Rejoice in His grace, mercy, pity and peace today. 

        You may also enjoy this inspirational devotional book, The Gospel According to Molly,

available here: 

                        http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BTSN1DU

Scenes of Grace 10

The book of Proverbs says that “a cheerful heart is like good medicine.”  Years ago I saw an old movie about a man who wanted to be a “serious film maker”.  He wanted to catch the drama of life, the dark underside, that he thought shaped the fabric of society.  Then he got in trouble and ended up in jail.  While there the jail had a movie night for the prisoners.  The movie was a series of cartoons.  Having been in jail he saw the dark underside of life and found it most unfulfilling as a topic.  Then when he saw everyone who was so hard pressed in the jail having a great time of relief and laughter at the cartoon movie night, he discovered that he had been looking in the wrong place for what drove society.  There was enough sorrow.  Laughter, a cheerful heart, was indeed good medicine.

Abraham and Sarah had been married for many years.  He was 99 and she was 89.  They had no children of their own.  That had been a great sorrow to them both.  Then one day Jesus came visiting.  He was one of the three men in Genesis 18.  He came with a great message of joy for them both.  In one year they would have their own son.  Sarah sat in the tent and laughed at the very thought of such an impossibility.  God then told her that she would call her son Isaac, which in Hebrew means “laughter”.  Every time she looked at her son she could think of how great God’s grace was to give her a son even in spite of her doubt.  She could laugh every day.  God gave her a cheerful heart.

Anna Russell wrote a beautiful praise hymn which isn’t sung much anymore titled “Wonderful, Wonderful Jesus”.  She talks about dreary days and long nights such as Abraham and Sarah must have endured.  God’s promise to them had included a child, but a child had not come.  Then one day Jesus stopped by and everything changed.  With Jesus all the promises of God are yea and amen.  Jesus said, “Next year you will have a son.”  And they did.  Anna Russell’s hymn of praise lifts our heart in adoration to the grandness of Jesus with this chorus, “Wonderful, wonderful Jesus! In the heart He implanteth a song; a song of deliverance, of courage, of strength – in the heart He implanteth a song.”  Let the promises of the grace of God fulfilled in Christ Jesus our Lord implant a song in your heart today. 

 

The Friday Benediction

Until Monday, my friends, may the good God envelop you with His grace; may you prove the common confession of faith, “I believe in the holy Christian church and in the fellowship of the saints”, and may you be enriched with joy and hope as you exercise that confession this weekend.  Amen

         You may also enjoy this inspirational devotional book, The Gospel According to Molly,

available here: 

                        http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BTSN1DU

 

Scenes of Grace 9

In Genesis 15 we have a marvelous scene of grace where God speaks with Abraham.  Abraham has concerns.  God doesn’t chide his concerns.  God gives Him more promises and clearer promises.  The Mighty God of the universe even makes an everlasting covenant with this man who has worries and openly discusses them with Him.  That is grace.  The upshot was that Abraham “believed in the Lord and it was accounted to him for righteousness.”  As Paul would say later in Romans 4, Abraham was saved by faith.  Now Abraham took that faith and with it stood firmly on the promises of God.

R. Kelso Carter wrote the uplifting hymn “Standing on the Promises”.  God’s promise to Abraham was an everlasting covenant.  That covenant pointed to and included our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  He is the fulfillment of God’s promise that the promised Seed would come and bring hope and righteousness to mankind.  Abraham and his true descendants stood firmly on the sure hope of those promises of the sure and certain God.  Christ came into this world and those of the faith of Abraham embraced their long awaited Savior.  They had waited 2000 years for the promise to be fulfilled. 

During those millennia there had been many difficult days.  There had been slavery in Egypt and abuse by neighboring nations.  There had been discipline by their Holy God who was seeking to bring many sons to glory.  There was exile and deprivation.  In it all there were the sure and precious promises of God.  We have waited 2000 years since the Ascension of Christ for His promised return.  There has been persecution, war, famine, terrors by day and by night for His precious bride the Church.  But His promises are still true.  His coming is still certain.  We can, with Abraham, stand on the promises. 

R. Kelso Carter says in his second stanza, “Standing on the promises that cannot fail, when the howling storms of doubt and fear assail.  By the living Word of God I shall prevail, standing on the promises of God.”  Abraham didn’t see all the promises that God made to him be fulfilled in his lifetime.  Still he pressed on in faith as should we.  We can sing together with Abraham the chorus of this great hymn, “Standing, standing, standing on the promises of God my Savior; standing, standing, I’m standing on the promises of God.”  By His abundant grace we stand on these promises. 

 

 

You may also enjoy this inspirational devotional book, The Gospel According to Molly,

available here: 

                        http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BTSN1DU

Scenes of Grace 8

Throughout Genesis 12 to 25 we see many scenes of grace in the life of Abraham.  These are scenes that show triumphant faith at work in bringing about miracles.  There are also other scenes of grace that cast a darker shadow over Abraham. Even in them are reflected the brighter rays of God’s abiding grace toward him.  The first account of Abraham, as given in chapter 12, reveals this darker side of his life. God said to him, “Get out of your country, and from your family and from your father’s house.”  In Abraham’s life there are a lot of scenes of parting. 

Frank Graeff wrote a beautiful hymn of comfort “Does Jesus Care?”  He chronicles many scenes of life that leave us anywhere on the spectrum from upset to devastated.  The question he poses in each instance is “Does Jesus Care?”  Think of the partings suffered by Abraham.  In Genesis 12 he left his father’s family, his home for 75 years.  In chapter 13 he separates from his nephew Lot.  In chapter 16 he is separated from the surrogate mother of his first child for the first time.  In chapter 21 he is separated from her again along with her son, his first child.  In chapter 23 he is separated from his wife Sarah to whom he had been married for over 50 years.  That is a lot of parting. 

Frank Graeff asks this question in verse 4 of his hymn, “Does Jesus care when I’ve said good-bye to the dearest on earth to me; when my sad heart aches ‘til it nearly breaks, is it ought to Him does He see?”  Triumphantly he responds in the chorus, “O yes, He cares! I know He cares! His heart is touched with my grief.  When the days are weary, the long nights dreary, I know my Savior cares.”  Jesus, the source of all comfort left the glory of His eternal home for the dusty roads of ancient Israel.  He suffered the loss of many of His followers who found His words hard to digest.  He was betrayed by an intimate friend and denied by another.  In the Old Testament He is called the “man of sorrows.” 

Does this Jesus know how we feel?  Yes, He does!  Can He comfort us in every pain and sorrow?  Yes, He can!  It is His marvelous grace that carries us through our darkest hour.  It is the sureness of His grace that enables us to face the future with hope and not despair.  In the scenes of our life that do not seem to have any light, there is always the light of His grace.  “O yes, He cares! I know He cares!”  Rejoice in the caring grace of Christ in each hour of need.

 

     You may also enjoy this inspirational devotional book, The Gospel According to Molly,

available here: 

                        http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BTSN1DU

  

Scenes of Grace 7

The grace of God that calls us to be His own is also the grace of God that leads us in His particular way.  God called Abraham by grace while he was an idolater in Ur.  God called him to go where God would show Him, not where God told him in advance.  Abraham trusted the God of grace and followed.  Thomas Olivers in his great hymn “The God of Abraham Praise” reminds us that the God who both called and led Abraham will still lead us today. 

At my dad’s funeral I intertwined the majestic and hopeful words of this hymn with my sermon.  My dad died of Alzheimer’s disease.  He hardly knew anything at the time he died.  If he remembered the name of God he could not say it.  Verse 4 of this hymn declares, however, that by His great grace God remembers us and His promises to us.  “He by Himself has sworn; I on His oath depend, I shall, on eagle wings up borne to Heav’n ascend. I shall behold His face; I shall His power adore, and sing the wonders of His grace forevermore.”

We all are called to follow God to the end He has chosen for us.  For some, like my dad, that somewhere might be the emptiness of Alzheimer’s.  It might be a land of vacant mind and vague memories.  It might be the utter loneliness of being in a land where you don’t even know yourself.  But God knows.  God has led.  God will keep.  The end of Abraham’s journey was as much in the care and grace of God as the beginning.  All the mighty deeds along the way; all the practice of faith in times of trial; all the triumphant victories of God displayed before our eyes can fade into a blank of nothingness, but God has not done so.  He is still the God who led us out from the darkness of sin into His brilliant light of hope.  That light still shines.  Those promises still hold. The God of Abraham is still leading and caring until our earthly end.  Then the great God of Abraham, in the marvelous revelation of His grace, will reveal to us the Promised Land. 

We are not forsaken.  We are remembered by our God. We are remembered by the God who called Abraham.  Sing these words of Thomas Olivers with great hope. “The God of Abraham praise, whose all sufficient grace shall guide me all my happy days, in all my ways.
He calls a worm His friend, He calls Himself my God! And He shall save me to the end, thro’ Jesus’ blood.”

 

     You may also enjoy this inspirational devotional book, The Gospel According to Molly,

available here: 

                        http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BTSN1DU

Scenes of Grace 6

Eliza Hewitt, the prolific American hymnist (she wrote over 1700 hymns) penned a hymn little known or used anymore, “A Rainbow on the Cloud”.  The chorus goes, “There’s a rainbow on the cloud for you; there’s a promise that is sure and true; yes, the storm will pass away; there will dawn a brighter day—there’s a rainbow on the cloud for you.”  With these words we find the grace of God given to Noah after he came off the ark.  God gave a promise and a sign for that promise.  God gave the rainbow. 

The rainbow was a covenantal sign that God would never again flood the earth.  But it is also a sign that can be taken as a visual promise from God.  God was concerned enough about man and man’s fears and weaknesses to make a grand promise to us.  God makes many grand promises and God keeps them all.  When we see the rainbow in the clouds we can know that God is above the clouds of our life.  He is over us in His protective care.  He does not prevent the rain or the storm, but He is behind every cloud with His wonderful promises.

In the storms of life we might often be tempted to believe that God has somehow turned His back from us, even if it is just for a moment.  But God’s promise is to the contrary.  He has said, “I will never leave you or forsake you.”  That means that He won’t leave us for even a moment.  We need to look up in our times of distress and see the rainbow in the clouds.  We need to make it a very special reality for our lives that God has given a constant sign of His grace. 

By grace He saved Noah and in grace He gave Him a symbol of His care.  That symbol He placed in the heavens so that we might look up to Him in every storm that comes our way.  Today we have another great symbol of His grace.  We have the cross.  As we behold the cross our eyes are drawn upward to heaven.  From there we know that we receive His constant grace and care for all our life.   We can gladly sing with Eliza Hewitt the final stanza of her hymn, “There’s a rainbow on the cloud! tho’ your soul is sorrow-bowed, lift your voice to praise the Lord today; there’s a rainbow ’round the throne; In its glory we will own that He led us in His perfect way.”  The way of grace is full of hope and promise.  Claim it today.

 

         You may also enjoy this inspirational devotional book, The Gospel According to Molly,

available here: 

                        http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BTSN1DU

 

Scenes of Grace 5

A great hymn of assurance, “A Shelter in the Time of Storm”, is given to us by Vernon Charlesworth.  Picture Noah and his family singing this hymn during the 40 days and nights of the deluge.  Verse three of the hymn begins, “The raging storms may round us beat”.  Think of being in that ark when outside all was dark except for the streaks of lightning.  The thunder beat a steady bass drum of dread.  Rain cascaded on the roof of the pitching vessel while the winds howled out God’s fury against the wickedness of man.  Inside that fragile retreat of the ark sat the surviving members of the human race along with all the animals to repopulate the earth. In this picture we find a great scene of grace.

We have two cats and a dog at our house.  Cleaning up after them helps me understand why our landfills are so full.  Noah had two of everything and at least seven of all clean animals. Every farmer knows how much work it is to clean the stables and barns.  There were only eight people on the ark to take care of the vast needs.  How did they do it?  They did it by grace.  God had to have done something miraculous to make it possible.  He had given them a great load to bear and His grace must have intervened to make them succeed in bearing it.  The ark was their means of safety.  God would care for them in it. 

The cross is our means of safety.  Jesus asks us to bear that cross.  It is a weight that we cannot bear on our own.  It is too heavy for us.  Jesus said that He would bear it with us.  His word tells us that His grace is sufficient for us in doing His will.  We could not survive the storms of this life bearing the cross of Jesus Christ without grace.  God’s grace preserved Noah and his family.  The miracle of His grace superseded the impossibility of their position.  Today it is the same.  God’s preserving grace carries us every day.  His manifest grace overcomes what cannot be done by human means.   

Knowing and understanding this great grace helps us confidently sing, “The Lord’s our Rock, in Him we hide – a shelter in the time of storm; secure whatever ill betide – a shelter in the time of storm.”  Praise the Rock today.  Thank Him for His great preserving grace.

 

The Friday Benediction

Until Monday, my friends, may the good God envelop you with His grace; may you prove the common confession of faith, “I believe in the holy Christian church and in the fellowship of the saints”, and may you be enriched with joy and hope as you exercise that confession this weekend.  Amen

 

     You may also enjoy this inspirational devotional book, The Gospel According to Molly,

available here: 

                        http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BTSN1DU