Walking Through the Valley of the Shadow of Death - Purity
951
Purity 951 01/26/2023 Purity 951 Podcast
Purity 951 on YouTube:
Good morning,
Today’s photo of shoreline pathway under blue skies
decorated with gossamer like clouds comes to us from Fred Dimmick who shared
this scene from his hike along Persimmon Creek in North Carolina on social media
commenting that come spiring the water levels would be up to the tree line! Just
a couple of weeks ago Fred had emergency surgery for a ruptured appendix so we
are happy to see that like this shoreline pathway, that medical episode was
only temporary as he obviously has been back on his feet and sharing his views of
the world again.
Well, It’s Thursday, and I used Fred’s photo because
it highlights a pathway of sorts and it points to the changing state of our
world. As we go forward through time
and space on the pathway of Christian Discipleship, people and places come and
go and we although we may feel that not much changes from day to day, things
can happen quite suddenly that changes things forever.
Yesterday, I attended the memorial service for a
relative who walked this earth for 80 years and the people gathered to remember
him gave testimony to the amount of people his life touched but his walk on the
earth has been diverted to eternity and even though his loved ones could count
on his steady presence in their lives for decades, they will now have to get
used to walking through their lives without them.
His widow and sons were very gracious and friendly in
greeting all of the people who came out to mourn the loss of their loved one
but their sorrow was evident and their grief will continue as they adjust to
the “new normal” without their husband and father in their life.
The quick pace of our world can be rather
unsympathetic as those who suffer loss are more or less forced to move on with
their lives in the face of devastating losses.
I have the utmost sympathy for my relatives immediate family because I remember
well the altered state of reality and depression that I entered back in 2002
when my infant son died. You only get so
much time for bereavement and then the world expects you to get back to work
and carry on. Everyone grieves
differently as everyone’s losses are highly individual but I know now that when
you walk through the valley of the shadow of death it makes a huge difference
when you walk through it with God.
When I lost my son, I wasn’t exactly “born again”.
My lapsed Catholic, confirmed Episcopalian faith was pretty shallow and when I
suffered his loss I was filled with sadness and anger and I abandoned God and
the church. I guess my faith was pretty
conditional. After living the wild life
of a prodigal, I returned home with a desire to find peace and love. I eventually met my ex and when we decided to
get married and have children, we decided that it was best to “go back to
church”. I was not thrilled with the
idea of going back to the Catholic church and when she offered the “Catholic
Light” alternative of the Episcopalian
church, I enthusiastically agreed to switch denominational teams.
I really
liked our extremely liberal Episcopalian church and even though my faith was no
deeper than when I was a Catholic, I prayed sincerely, and we attended service
regularly. I had a sense that I had made
peace with God. We got married in the
church and began to have kids; life was good. Granted, I was still a
recreational drunk, but I figured me and God were “good”.
But then my son, Holden, died and even though I
blamed myself for his death because I should have “known” that the doctor was
wrong, that my son was in mortal danger despite his positive diagnosis over the
weekend before his death, I still had
enough bitterness to blame the Lord for not answering my prayers to heal
him. So God broke our deal. I had gone
to church, and I was supposed to have a good life. Because God had let me down,
I was done with Him. I stopped going to
church and I stopped praying to or believing in God.
I walked into the valley of shadow of death with
just the unholy trinity of me, myself, and I, and the world became ice cold as
I saw everything as temporary as I viewed everything as on a collision course
with death.
The years after my son’s death were a blur of depression
and going through the motions of work, raising my remaining children, and
trying to squeeze circumstantial happiness out of excesses of materialism,
creature comforts, and alcohol and drugs.
Life was temporary and apparently meaningless so it was best to live it
up. I was the responsible prodigal in my own home, working hard all day and
playing hard all night in a vicious cycle of trying to carry on.
I eventually stopped the madness and sought a
spiritual solution but made some poor choices there and it was only by the grace
of God, years later, that I came to Christ in 2010, eight years after my son
passed. It was a long time in the desert,
and I don’t recommend it.
So trust me when I tell you that Christ is the only
way to God and that it is only in coming to know Him and His ways that we can
find meaning, purpose, and peace. The
truths of Christianity are sometimes paradoxical and can be lost in the confusion
of social constructs of “church life” but I am telling you that if you honestly
and sincerely seek the Lord, you will find Him and if you apply His wisdom to the
way you live, you will see the fruit of the Spirit grow and transform your
life.
God is the Truth. God is Love. God is eternal and He
never changes although everything in His creation does. As much as everything
in this universe can be seen as temporary, God is the One Constant and He will
never leave us or forsake us. So if you
are suffering loss or lacking meaning, don’t run from the Lord, Run to
Him.
When you are on your own, you have no wisdom or
power. When you look at the world with the belief that there is no God, there
is no hope and no matter what individual efforts you make to achieve happiness,
they are doomed to failure as you have neglected the Source of all that is good
and decided to worship your self or the things He created rather than the Creator. If you are going the wrong way, it doesn’t
matter how walk or where you walk, you are lost in the desert, you are lost in
the valley of the shadow of death.
But there is hope. There is a light to follow. There
is a Savior to save you. Jesus Christ. His
coming to earth was God stepping out of eternity to wake us up to His presence
and His love.
So if you don’t have Christ, pray the Him and make
Him your Lord and Savior. He alone brings life. He alone brings forgiveness. He
alone brings peace.
And if you know Him, but have lost hope because of
the changing circumstances of life or compounded losses, stop looking at the
world and look to Him and either learn or remember who He has made you to be,
in Christ.
In the face of recent losses, dashed hopes and
disappointments, it can be easy to focus on the bad but when we look to Jesus,
we can find our way back on the path of peace and joy that He has for us. So keep walking and talking with God, He will
remind you that you have been saved, been made complete, and lack for nothing,
He will show you that you have already been set free and that the only thing
that is temporary in His kingdom is pain we feel on earth and that a great deal
of it can be lifted from us when we abide in Him.
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Today’s Bible verse comes to us from “The NLT Bible
Promise Book for Men”.
This morning’s meditation verse is:
Psalm 31:19 (NLT2)
19 How great is the goodness you
have stored up for those who fear you. You lavish it on those who come to you
for protection, blessing them before the watching world.
Today’s Bible verse reminds us of the goodness that God
stores up for those who fear Him and how He blesses those who come to Him.
The blessings of the Lord only come to those who fear Him and
come to Him.
We who are guilty of sin must fear His wrath. Otherwise, we
would not come to Christ to receive our forgiveness, new eternal life, and
peace with God. We fear eternity in hell
and surrender to the Lordship of Christ to be saved from that fate. Saved from hell? Sound like a blessing to
me! That’s the protection we need! It’s the
protection that last forever and covers everything that could befall us because
although we may suffer on earth in light of eternity, we can know that our pain
is a light affliction because we will one day experience no more pain, no more
tears, and no more death when we come into God’s kingdom.
However, God’s peace does join us on earth. When we abide in His presence and live according to His truth we are blessed with the fruit of the Spirit and the good consequences that come from righteous living. So fear the Lord by respecting His commands and by making the decision to obey Him to receive the blessings of faithfully following the One who loves us and knows best so you can see how great is the goodness that He stores up for us.
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As always, I invite all to go to mt4christ.org where I
always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to
assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk.
Today we continue sharing from A.W. Pink’s “The
Sovereignty of God.”
As always, I share this information for educational
purposes and encourage all to purchase Bonhoeffer’s books for your own
private study and to support his work. This resource is available on
many websites for less than $20.00.
THE
SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
By ARTHUR W. PINK
CHAPTER FOUR
THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD IN SALVATION, concludes.
3. The Sovereignty of God the Holy Spirit in
Salvation concludes
The Holy Spirit is
sovereign in His operations and His mission is confined to God’s elect: they
are the ones He “comforts,” “seals,” guides into all truth, shews things to
come, etc. The work of the Spirit is necessary
in order to the complete accomplishment of the Father’s eternal purpose.
Speaking hypothetically, but reverently, be it said, that if God had done
nothing more than given Christ to die for sinners, not a single sinner would
ever have been saved. In order for any sinner to see his need of a Saviour and be willing to receive the Saviour he needs the work of the Holy Spirit upon
and within him as imperatively required. Had God done nothing more than given
Christ to die for sinners and then sent forth His servants to proclaim
salvation through Jesus Christ, thus leaving sinners entirely to themselves to
accept or reject as they pleased,
then every sinner would have rejected,
because at heart every man hates God and is at enmity with Him. Therefore the
work of the Holy Spirit was needed to bring the sinner to Christ, to overcome
his innate opposition, and compel him to accept the provision God has made. We
say “compel” the sinner, for this is precisely what the Holy Spirit does, has
to do, and this leads us to consider at some length, though as briefly as
possible, the parable of the “Marriage Supper.”
In Luke 14:16 we
read, “A certain man made a great supper, and bade many.” By comparing
carefully what follows here with Matthew 22:2–10 several important distinctions
will be observed. We take it that these passages are two independent accounts
of the same parable, differing in detail according to the distinctive purpose
and design of the Holy Spirit in each Gospel. Matthew’s account—in harmony with
the Spirit’s presentation there of Christ as the King says, “A certain king made a marriage for his son.”
Luke’s account—where the Spirit presents Christ as the Son of Man—says “A
certain man made a great supper and
bade many.” Matthew 22:3 says, “And sent forth His servants”; Luke 14:17 says, “And sent His servant.” Now what we wish particularly to call attention to is,
that all through Matthew’s account it is “servants,” whereas in Luke it is
always “servant.” The class of readers for whom we are writing are those that
believe, unreservedly, in the verbal
inspiration of the Scriptures, and such will readily acknowledge there must be
some reason for this change from the plural number in Matthew to the singular
number in Luke. We believe the reason is a weighty one and that attention to
this variation reveals an important truth. We believe that the “servants” in
Matthew, speaking generally, are all
who go forth preaching the Gospel, but that the “Servant” in Luke 14 is the
Holy Spirit, for God the Son, in the days of His earthly ministry, was the
Servant of Jehovah (Isa. 42:1). It will be observed that in Matthew 22 the
“servants” are sent forth to do three things: first, to “call” to the wedding (v. 3); second, to “tell those which are bidden … all things are ready: come unto the
marriage.” (v. 4); third, to “bid to
the marriage” (v. 9); and these three are the things which those who minister
the Gospel today are now doing. In Luke 14 the Servant is also sent forth to do
three things: first, He is to say to
them that were bidden, Come: for all things are now ready” (v. 17); second, He
is to “bring in the poor, and the
maimed, and the halt, and the blind” (v. 21); third, He is to “compel them to come in” (v. 23), and the
last two of these the Holy Spirit alone
can do!
In the above
scripture we see that “the Servant,”
the Holy Spirit, compels certain ones
to come in to the “supper” and herein is seen His sovereignty, His omnipotency,
His Divine sufficiency. The clear implication from this word “compel” is, that
those whom the Holy Spirit does
“bring in” are not willing of
themselves to come. This is exactly
what we have sought to show in previous paragraphs. By nature, God’s elect are
children of wrath even as others
(Eph. 2:3), and as such their hearts are at enmity with God. But this “enmity”
of theirs is overcome by the Spirit and He “compels” them to come in. Is it not clear then that the reason why others are left outside, is not only
because they are unwilling to go in,
but also because the Holy Spirit does not “compel” them to come in? Is it not manifest that the Holy Spirit is sovereign in the exercise of His power,
that as the wind “bloweth where it
pleaseth,” so the Holy Spirit operates
where He pleases?
And now to sum up. We
have sought to show the perfect consistency of God’s ways: that each Person in
the Godhead acts in sympathy and harmony with the Others. God the Father
elected certain ones to salvation, God the Son died for the elect, and God the
Spirit quickens the elect. Well may we sing,
Praise God from whom all blessings flow,
Praise Him all creatures here below,
Praise Him above ye heavenly host,
Praise
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.[1]
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tomorrow------------------------
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