Poems of the Scribe #1

A bit of introduction: My dear Friends, I have not written to you in a while. and now I do so for your encouragement. I have written a poem, a very simple one that I hope brings joy to the sorrowful and revitalization to those who are at the low points in life.


 The Bloody Bell

By Ian Long

When I’m reminded of my sin,

The Bloody Bell, it rings again.

With joyous chimes my thoughts it haunts

the writ of my Salvation’s fonts[1]

Though cast in Gold, to bronze became,

To humbly cast aside earth’s fame

To change the sinner’s stained soul,

from darkest black to white as snow.

Though Vaunting Pride and Wily Lust

Impose upon this human Dust.

The blessed ringing of this Bell

now speaks of saving men from hell.

The winey stain that blots Its sheen,

Sin’s deathly wages aimed and keen.

The Judgement price was paid in blood,

That paints Its shiny surface red.

Those perfect peals silenced by Death.

Laid under by Divine request.

But Lo! Behold, third Dawn’s rejoice!

Salvation’s Bell regained His voice!

The Covenant made new in Blood,

Sin’s awful debt in full was paid.

The sinner’s stance in Godly ire,

It burned away in Holy Fire.

This bell which chimed Creation’s birth,

Now rings its loving tones on earth.

This Gospel Bell which ringeth true

Now tones its saving song for You.

Rejoice my Soul, in this you sing,

In privilege now this Bell to ring.

So when our Foe reminds of sin,

The Bloody Bell will ring again.

---

[1]  words

(Un)conditional

If you have been around at all in the last twenty six odd years you probably know who these two are.

If not, well I’ll explain in due course. These two are two icons of the gaming world, Link, the Hero of the Legend of Zelda series, and Mario, the hero of the Mushroom Kingdom.

Now I understand that this is a rather brisk departure from my normal venue of writing, but I feel that what these two can teach us is profound if looked at through the Scripture’s lens. Yes, I am going to be drawing out Biblical truth from video games, so get your torches and pitchforks ready…

If you are still reading it means either you are waiting for me to fall, or that you are interested in what I have to say, either way I will speak the truth in love insofar as the Holy Spirit gives me credence and power, to God be the glory.

Now both of these characters have been on the scene for almost thirty years, and their respective series’ are still going strong today. I happen to be quite a fan of both of these game legacies.

Now let me explain, yes I play video games, why? Briefly: because they are one of the most interactive and interesting ways to tell a story, don’t get me wrong, I love a good book, but games allow you to control parts of a narrative, to really be a part of it.

I understand though that many distrust video games, they, like any media outlet have from their inception been riled and rife with sin (because the human heart is by nature sinful: Jeremiah 17:9), but all in all these two series’ have been largely unstained, and are reckoned as children’s games because of it.

But the truth I want to share (and for many reiterate) is one of profound and deep spiritual nature and should be taken seriously insofar (I love that word) as I use true Scripture to back it up, which I fully intend to do.

This truth is one very clearly defined in the Bible, and it is essential to our understanding of God and how He relates to us, especially because of our sin, and His plan for Redemption.

Both of these characters personify this truth very well in my estimation, and I have been a player of these games for quite a while now. This essential truth is the truth of Unconditional Love.

I’ll say it again, both Link and Mario in their respective universes as I see it personify unconditional love.

How can I say this? Well both characters and their games follow the same essential patterns for story, and plot. Both are stories of heroes who must rescue a princess in distress and save the kingdom. A very traditional and simple structure and one I am personally very fond of.

So where does unconditional love come in? Well let me show you where I am coming from in terms of Scripture first, and then I will make my case.

1 Corinthians 13:4-7 “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

Love in a Christian sense is born from the love that God shows us. Because of these two truths:

1.      1 John 4:7-8 “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.”

God is love, it is part of His essence, His being, His perfection.

2.      The other half, how we know love: 1 John 4:9-10 “In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”

The only reason we know anything of love is because God initiated it, shared with us at out creation by His hands, and commanded it in His law. He also shows it perfectly, and most pertinently to this discussion, unconditionally.

One must simply look once at the Gospel to understand that God’s love is unconditional.

Ephesians 2:1-5 “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—“

Even though we were enemies of God, He loved us, and now, through Christ, He loves us all the more.

So where does 1 Corinthians 13 come in? Well that passage is speaking to believers in the church, teaching us from God’s love how to love one another (the second greatest commandment underneath loving God).

So how do video game characters personify this weighty Biblical truth? Well first I will admit, imperfectly, for only God is perfect. Even still I believe these characters are able to open younger minds to this truth, which in this world is vitally important, and becoming more so by the day.

Now to business, I have laid my foundation, now to build my house.

1.      Love is patient.

In both games these two heroes have to put up with a lot, and yet neither is ever phased or frustrated. Dealing with annoying companions, everyday complaints, various sufferings, puzzles, and even mortal peril to protect the people they love most, and you never hear a word of complaint or selfish thought.

2.      Love is kind

Both Link and Mario are always willing to take the time to help those in need, and it is never a burden. No task is too small, no problem too obtrusive, and they will both give their help with a smile on their faces, and again, not a single complaint or self-seeking nonsense.

3.      Love does not envy or boast

The simplicity of these characters is beautiful, for neither ever wants more than he has. Both live simple lives in their respective games, with simple pleasures, and yet they never want more. And all of the heroic deeds they must accomplish to save the day, they never do it for praise or personal gain or glory, only to see their loved ones safe and sound.

4.      Love is not arrogant

This one sort of goes with the last point: Arrogance is pride taking root, but neither Mario, nor Link ever seek to glory in their own feats, for all of them are a means to the end of loving others, all of their strengths and abilities are used for selfless acts towards those around them.

5.      Love is not rude

This one explains itself, in a world where movies, and games are filled with crude and sinful speech, both Mario and Link are silent protagonists, not given to coarse speech or brash words.

6.      Love does not insist on its own way

Although both Mario and Link are more often than not thrown into situations that no one would ever want to be in, both take it in stride, seeing every obstacle as one to be overcome for the sake of those they love, and while they could complain at being dealt a bad hand by life, or by other people, never will you hear them speak out against it. Whatever happens is, to them, a chance to prove that their love is both active, and unconditional.

7.      Love is not irritable or resentful

I’ll reiterate, no matter what happens to them, both Link and Mario don’t care about themselves, they care for others, and are never annoyed.

8.      Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth.

I use Link more for this point. He is famously the wielder of the Master Sword, also known as the Blade of Evil’s Bane. Real love cannot bear evil, because to love God is to hate evil (Proverbs 8:13), in the same way, to love each other is to resist not only the evil all around us, but in each other as well. However kindness is a part of love, and can never be sacrificed for a hard-handed approach.

9.      Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things

This final point is important, and I want to stress why. For no matter if it is hardships, trials, sufferings, perils, or even death that the heroes Mario and Link must face to save the princess and the kingdom, they never look for repayment, or compensation. They never want anything beyond to see the people they love safe, and protected. They ask nothing in return for their heroic deeds because they aren’t thinking of themselves when they do them, they are thinking of others.

This is the definition of love given to me by a dear friend and mentor:

“Love is giving whatever I have, that you need because God wants me to.” – Daniel Kirk

God gave His Son, Jesus Christ, freely, and willingly killed Him* to save us, to love us, even though we did not deserve it. And now He commands us to love Him, and to love each other. 

In a world where the meaning of love has been twisted and perverted, the purity of the unconditional love shown in the Legend of Zelda and Mario video games is a bright spark in a media world filled with sin and perversion. 

I think both Link and Mario can teach us how to do this, and though we don’t have a princess or a world to save, we do have a God-given mandate to love one another, and how must we do this? Unconditionally, just as God loves us, we are to love each other.

I pray that this truth reaches you.

Unconditionally loved

--The Scribe

*Isaiah 53

What Is Not Seen

Today my friends, I begin a new chapter in my writing career, a sort-of blending of my two greatest aspirations and ambitions. The first being my devotion to Jesus Christ, who made me, saved me by His blood, and gave me new life with Him. And the second being my love of fantastical things, and writing of them.

I am going to be taking certain parts of some dearly beloved fantasy works ranging from Tolkein to Beagle and everything in between. As a note, the interpretations I am going to be taking from the novels are my own, if you disagree with the stance I take, well, it is your mind and your heart.

But let me be clear: While the books I am looking at will be fantasy, the Scriptures, the Bible is the absolutely true and all-sufficient Word of God, and I will be using as such. I am not making light of the truth of God.

The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle is a classic work of magic and adventure, but the main character, the so-named “last unicorn” is not what one would call a relatable character. Unicorns in Beagle’s world are the most beautiful creatures alive, totally pure, white as snow, and unmistakable, or so it was. But the Unicorn discovers something disheartening as she searches for more of her kind. Two men she encounters mistake her for a white mare, for they cannot see her true form, her true power, her true beauty. Something veils their eyes from what she truly is, and she is flabbergasted at this revelation.

“’How can it be?’ she wondered. ‘I suppose I could understand it if men had simply forgotten unicorns, or if they had changed so that they hated all unicorns now and tried to kill them when they saw them. But not to see something else—what do they look like to one another, then? What do trees look like to them, or houses, or real horses, or their own children?’” (The Last Unicorn-pg. 7, Beagle)

This story is a noble, yet sad one, about fading beauty and how men can lose sight of things that are truly beautiful and see them as ordinary or even worthless. This is a real problem of the heart for humanity, and not just inside this fictional tale, but in reality as well.

Let me explain. Romans 1:18-23 “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.”

They exchanged the glory of God for lesser things.

You see my friends, this is the true sorrow of humanity, Because of our wicked and deceitful hearts (Jeremiah 17:9) our eyes are all too easily veiled from seeing God as He truly is, indeed without the Holy Spirit’s supernatural work in our hearts we will never see God as He is.

Just as men in the story could not see the unicorn for what she truly was, an immortal and pure, and beautiful creature, so it is with us and God. We see Him only as a Judge and mistake Him for a merely wrathful God. We see only His Love and thus diffuse His power and glory. Or some do not see Him at all, and see only nature, or some kind of strange fate or trust in science to find answers only God has to reveal.

You see the great danger that the human heart is in my friends? For if God is truly what the Scriptures say: The Almighty, All-powerful, All-Knowing, All-Loving, All-Just, Sovereign, Creator of the universe, then the crime of deceiving our hearts to see Him as something, or someone else is high indeed.

Our sin damns us to hell because we fail to grasp God’s glory as He intended for us.

Jeremiah 2:11-13 “Has a nation changed its gods, even though they are no gods?
But my people have changed their glory for that which does not profit. Be appalled, O heavens, at this; be shocked, be utterly desolate, declares the Lord,
for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters,
and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.”

We are all guilty of this, as much as we may try to deny it. How many times a day are you angry? How many times a day do you worry? How many times a day do you say in your heart “if I only had that” or “If only I had more”? How many times in a day do you let your eyes wander to evil things, or let your heart burn with envy or jealousy towards another?

And that is the short list. I assure you, if I were to keep going, I would find your sin on the list sooner or later.

But the real sin is that you are forsaking God, the Purest, Holiest, Most High, and most Beautiful thing in both the earth and heavens, and under the earth. In all the universe you could not find His equal or anything with which to compare. I know, I’ve tried it myself.

I’m guilty of the same sin, hewing out broken cisterns that would not hold water. A man dying of thrist has eyes for only one thing. A man dying of hunger is not distracted by a sign with food on it, since it is only a picture and not the real thing with which he can eat and save his life.

So it is with God.

Our souls were designed to be nourished from His mere presence.

Psalm 73:25-28 “Whom have I in heaven but you?  And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

For behold, those who are far from you shall perish;  you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you. But for me it is good to be near God;  I have made the Lord God my refuge, that I may tell of all your works.”

He is the only One that can truly revive our dead souls. And when we hunger we are meant like trees to soak up His love, His grace, and His Light.

Psalm 1:1-4 “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.

He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither.
In all that he does, he prospers. The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away.”

The fact remains… Many do not know Him in this way.

They still exchange the Glory of God, for lesser things. They still only see a mare, when they are looking at a unicorn.

Yet, there is a way. God Himself made one.

For if all suffer from this sinfully veiled sight that mistakes the One True God for something or someone He is not, then all must have their sight restored.

Mark 8:22-25 “And they came to Bethsaida. And some people brought to him a blind man and begged him to touch him. And he took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village, and when he had spit on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, “Do you see anything?” And he looked up and said, “I see people, but they look like trees, walking.” Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again; and he opened his eyes, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly.”

Jesus Christ, came to this earth to restore our sight, yes, in this part of the Gospel Jesus restored a man’s physical sight, but the reason He came was to open our heart’s eyes, to allow us to see beyond the veil of our sin to God’s true nature.

After all: Hebrews 1:1-3 “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.”

Jesus shows us who God is because He Himself is God in human flesh. And He came to make purification for sins with His own blood, to become our Spotless Lamb, the only pure sacrifice able to pay the debt incurred by our sins.

Romans 3:23-26 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”

So now, through Him we can see again the true beauty before us, the pure white Lamb of God in the Person of Jesus Christ. We cannot mistake Him for anything but Himself. We cannot mistake a unicorn for a mare, something beautiful for something common.

Want me to show you something else in way of parting? Here’s something from Mark’s Gospel, his account of the life of Jesus.

Mark 9:2-3 “And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became radiant, intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them.“

His clothes became radiant white… Sounds familiar doesn’t it?

Blessed with True Sight to see Him as He is,

--The Scribe

Fairest of All

Inspiration taken from C.S. Lewis's Magician's Nephew. 

The Chronicles of Narnia are a beloved set of books by the great author C.S. Lewis, but perhaps more important than Lewis’s literary work, is his work as a devoted and gifted follower of Jesus Christ. The first book chronologically in his Narnia series is the Magician’s Nephew, a personal favorite of mine.

It tells the origins story of the land and world of Narnia, and its creation story closely mirrors the Bible’s own account of how God created our world from nothing, ex nihilo in the Latin, and spoke it into existence, creating everything for His good pleasure.

However, that is not the parallel I will be taking from this book for now, that may yet come later. For now I wish to take a single passage, explain its context, and then back it up with Scripture. Let us begin my friends!

In the Magician’s Nephew, the main character, Digory Kirke’s mother is dying. And after many adventures he is given the chance by Aslan (the creator of Narnia) to take some of the fruit of the Tree of Life to his ailing mother, provided he not try to take it by treachery or force.

And it is this line that we will look at, from chapter 15, page 215-216:

“Digory took the Apple of Life out of his pocket. And just as the Witch Jadis had looked different when you saw her in our world instead of in her own, so the fruit of that mountain garden looked different too. There were of course all sorts of coloured things in the bedroom; the coloured counterpane on the bed, the wallpaper, the sunlight from the window, and Mother's pretty, pale blue dressing jacket. But the moment Digory took the Apple out of his pocket, all those things seemed to have scarcely any colour at all. Every one of them, even the sunlight, looked faded and dingy. The brightness of the Apple threw strange lights on the ceiling. Nothing else was worth looking at: you couldn't look at anything else. And the smell of the Apple of Youth was as if there was a window in the room that opened on Heaven. “

This my friends is a truth worth noting. For I do not believe we would give this a passing glance normally. I will pose this question: Do we who are Christians see Jesus Christ like that? Do we see our God like that?

I will give you this Scripture and explain how it all ties together: Hebrews 12:1-2

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”

What I want you to see, dear friend, is that for Jesus to fixate our gaze, we have to see Him as though there is nothing else worth looking at. Everything should fade out and grow dim when exposed to the light of our Savior. All color should fade but that which Jesus exudes, and all light should dim but that which comes from Christ’s shining face.

Hebrews 1:3-- “He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,”

Jesus is the most beautiful thing in the universe, and if we are to follow Him faithfully, we must be willing and ready to allow everything else to fade away in order to see Him as the primary source of beauty, and color, and life to our souls, because the truth is, He is all of that and more.

Let Christ become to us as the Apple was to Digory: “Nothing else was worth looking at: you couldn't look at anything else.”

Oh my friends, were that we would see Jesus Christ in this way every day. Nothing else is worth looking at, nothing else is worth gazing at but the beauty, and Majesty of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Pray for this my dear friends, as I pray it for my own sinful heart, that God would cause my eyes to be opened to see Christ’s divine, and indescribable beauty and glory.

Let us sing with the Hymnist:

“Fair are the meadows, fairer still the woodlands,

Robed in the blooming garb of spring;

Jesus is fairer, Jesus is purer,

Who makes the woeful heart to sing.

Fair is the sunshine, fairer still the moonlight,

And all the twinkling starry host;

Jesus shines brighter, Jesus shines purer

Than all the angels heaven can boast.”

And pray with the Psalmist:

Psalms 27:4--“One thing I have asked from the LORD, that I shall seek: That I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, To behold the beauty of the LORD And to meditate in His temple.”

Praying for eyes to see His Beauty,

--The Scribe

Restless, and Rest

It seems to me a very strange thing sleep… For some twelve hours we have set aside a time for it, and all of humanity agrees that it is necessary; one of the few things sinful humans can agree on at all is that we all need sleep. Some need it more than others, some think they don’t need it but do, and some should have it, but are for various reasons deprived.

Just as I am on this night in May.

First let me be clear, I am not speaking of sleep in this discourse. I am speaking of the true need that all humanity shares, the need for rest.

We live our lives out in such a hurry, and many will never stop and wonder at the beauty and sanctity of God’s creation, they never slow down and recall for whom, and by whom they were made. But God gives us this command in Psalm 46, a very good Psalm that assures us that God is our fortress and strength, and “a very present help in trouble.” (verse 1), the command is to “be still”.

Psalm 46:10 “Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted in the earth!”

The literal translation for the words “be still” is: cease striving.

Isn’t that interesting? God knows us, He knows that we move through life without stopping to remember or reflect, and this is our folly. So He commands us through the Psalmist to “cease striving” and know that He is God.

So let’s slow down our busy lives for a moment and reflect on the God who gives us rest.
Rest is something we all need. And to be restless, means that something is hindering our rest. Rest, as I believe it, is one of the attributes God shared with us when He so graciously created us to show forth His glory.

Genesis 2:2-3 “And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.”

Let me clear this up before we go further. I reiterate, this isn’t a discussion about sleep. God does not sleep, (Psalm 121) He does not need to. Rest is different from sleep, and I will show you how in due course.

Rest is the ability to slow down all functions and repose, it is the ability to reflect on past actions and future plans, and it is a time of dear reunion with the God who made us, if we rest and reflect on His Word, as is proper and commanded in Scripture (Psalm 1 is one example of many).

For just one time in all of history God rested, He looked upon His creation and called it good. He is outside of time, so He could already see what was to happen, and the way He would send His son to save sinners, and so, for the only time in recorded history, God rested, and reflected on all He had made, delighted in it, and cast His love upon it, and upon us.

In this way, I believe we are blessed with the same ability. Though we ourselves are limited by mortal minds and sinful hearts, by God’s grace and Christ’s blood, and the Holy Spirit’s sanctifying us constantly, we also can find rest. We can reflect on the past, our sin and how we were once enemies of God. And we can then reflect on how Christ saved us, if indeed we are saved by His grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8), and we can also look ahead to the future, in a limited, and dependent way.

But while we are on this earth, there are many things that will hinder us from this most blessed rest. And our Savior, Christ Jesus, being our Great High Priest who can sympathize with our weaknesses (Hebrews 4:15), he also experienced this in His time on earth as He prepared to make the sacrifice for our sins.

Mark 6:31 “And he said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat.”

During Jesus’ ministry, and in this passage, is recorded His feeding of five-thousand men and many more women and children. He provides for them what they needed, but being unable to see past the physical, they thought only of the food he gave them, and the brief respite.

But what Jesus was trying to tell them is that they needed Him. He alone could provide what they really needed, He alone could feed their hungry souls, or give them rest. He goes so far as to say this, and take comfort in this truth Christian and Unbeliever alike, for your needs are met in Christ!

Matthew 11:28-30 “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.’”

Christ has promised those who come to Him, true rest, rest apart from the power of sin, which, more than perhaps anything else, hinders our ability to rest. For sin will fog our reflections and draw us away from the source of our rest, which is only ever God. But thanks be to God! We are freed from the power of sin by the blood of His Son (John 8:36)!

So then, if we truly want rest, if weariness from living in this fast moving, sin-stained, painful world has us worn, I pray that you will take time each morning to find your rest in Christ. For you have only a little longer here, and that is the final rest I shall speak of. But first I want to share a few more observations with you my friends.

Rest is not something we can do if we do not trust in our safety, the safety of our homes, the safety of our beds. But truly, we live in a sinful world, a dangerous and fearful world. And if you have trouble sleeping at night because you fear, or because of worry, then I have two things to say to you:
First, fear is sin, for it is certainly not trusting in God.

 Psalm 4:8 “In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.” 

If you are trusting in anything, or anyone other than God, your safety is not guaranteed. But for those who trust in God, even Death holds no more fear. So trust in God, He alone will make you dwell in safety.

Secondly, worry is also sin, for it again is a mistrusting of God. But I say this to you:

Matthew 6:25-27 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?”

God is your Heavenly Father, He knows better than you what you need. And so, do not worry. And if you doubt the truth of this passage I will tell you, these blessed words were said by the very Jesus who calls us to find our rest in Him!

And finally, we come to the rest every Christian longs for. The final rest in Christ when we meet Him face to face, whether carried in Death’s arms (for that is the only power he has left), or when Jesus returns to brings His Beloved to Himself for all eternity.

The Author of Hebrews speaks briefly of this rest.

 Hebrews 4:9-11 “So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his. Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.”

We must strive to obtain it. This seems a departure from what I’ve been talking about resting. But I tell you, these things are not mutually exclusive in God’s Kingdom, for He is not bound by anything. We can both strive and rest in our pursuit of Him, and indeed, that is how it is meant to be.

At one point striving to achieve the goal, which is to know Christ (Philippians 3:14-15)

And at the same time finding the rest for our souls in Him (Psalm 23)

I implore you all, my dear friends: If you have not at once found this rest, I bid you read Isaiah 55, for there is still time for you to heed God’s call. And if you have found this rest, but perhaps have forgotten it, or God seems far away. Come back and find rest for your weary souls.

“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

Finding my Rest in Him,

--The Scribe

Two Things....

Two Things… Two things my friends, that I believe we all ought to remind ourselves of daily. These two things are not mutually exclusive, but must be recalled in due course, and in the light of one another.

These two things are the fact that God is far Above us, but we are not Beneath Him… Sound paradoxical? I will explain in due course.

God dwells in a place of His own, outside of time, He created everything, and is over everything supreme and sovereign. He controls all and knows all, and there is not one thing that happens that He does not know of. 

He is beyond us in every way, the universe, with all of its vastness, sits easily in the palm of His hand, and every galaxy, planet, and star is kept in place by Him.

Psalm 113:4-6 “The Lord is high above all nations, and his glory above the heavens! Who is like the Lord our God, who is seated on high, who looks far down on the heavens and the earth?”

If God must look far down to see the heavens, which to us are unreachable heights, then how far above us must He be? Many times in Scripture He is described as high and lifted up. Indeed one of His attributes, His Holiness means that He is completely set apart from us, outside of what we can comprehend. 

Isaiah 55:8-9 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

Which one of us can think like God? Which one of us can plan every event in history or describe every natural process of this world? None of us can. But God, who crafted it all could, should He wish to. 

Isaiah 40:21-23 “Do you not know? Do you not hear?  Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to dwell in; who brings princes to nothing, and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness.”

Are you beginning to understand? God is High and Lifted up, not like us, indeed so unlike us that in His presence Isaiah thought he would come apart at the seams. In the light of God’s glory we would melt away into nothing, for before His glory we are as nothing. 

Isaiah 6:1-5 “In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said: 

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;

the whole earth is full of his glory!”

 And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!””

Isaiah saw the barest fraction of God’s glory, and it was enough to force the realization of not only his humanity, but his mortality. Isaiah’s very soul was moved at the sight of God’s throne, and woe to us if we are too hard of heart to understand why. 

God is glorious! 

We cannot fully fathom Him though we were to try for millennia. We cannot reach Him, though we explore the furthest reaches of space. With Him is true wisdom, and it is the only place She can be found.

Job 28:20-28 ““From where, then, does wisdom come?  And where is the place of understanding? It is hidden from the eyes of all living and concealed from the birds of the air.

Abaddon and Death say, ‘We have heard a rumor of it with our ears.’ 

“God understands the way to it, and he knows its place. For he looks to the ends of the earth  and sees everything under the heavens. When he gave to the wind its weight and apportioned the waters by measure, when he made a decree for the rain and a way for the lightning of the thunder,

then he saw it and declared it; he established it, and searched it out.

And he said to man, ‘Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to turn away from evil is understanding.’””

Can any of us say that? 

No, I daresay, none of us who are in right control of our minds can. 

To sum all of this up, when we remember these things, in order to gain a proper perspective of where we stand in the face of God’s majesty, we must simply ask the question God posed to Job in Job 38:4-7

““Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?  Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements—surely you know!  Or who stretched the line upon it?

On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?”

Where were you? Ah yes, not even created yet. And who created you? 

God did, and He doesn’t need you, He didn’t need to create us, He wanted to.

 

Psalm 50:12-15 ““If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and its fullness are mine.

Do I eat the flesh of bulls  or drink the blood of goats? Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and perform your vows to the Most High, and call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.””

God doesn’t need us, we need Him. We were created for His glory, not for ours.

 

Isaiah 43:6-7 “I will say to the north, Give up, and to the south, Do not withhold;

bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth,

everyone who is called by my name,  whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.”

Do not think for a single moment that this life, your life is yours to live as you please. 

You were given it; it was formed by God to bring glory to His name, not yours.

Now… If you feel sufficiently humbled, we can move on, if not, read the top section again and again until you do, and if you still don’t understand, then something is wrong with your heart, something only God can fix, a heart of stone only God can break, and I pray for you. 

However, if you do understand, if you do feel humbled by how high God is above us, we may move on. God is certainly high Above us, but I tell you this for your comfort dear Christian, we are not Beneath Him. 

I will explain. 

Psalm 103:13-17 “As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust.

As for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field; for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more. But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him,”

He remembers, He knows us, He made us, we are His children. That is what I mean, that we are not beneath Him. 

You see, He is high and lifted up, the Creator of everything including you and I, but He created us to dwell in fellowship with Him, but in our sin we cannot, for He is Holy and Perfect.

All of that is paid for in Christ—Romans 3:23-25 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.”

We are now reconciled to the place we should be, the only place we must be, that is, near God, the one who made us and remembers us, who protects us and loves us. Like a Shepherd with His sheep.

 

Psalm 23:1-4 “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures.

He leads me beside still waters.  He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil,

for you are with me;  your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”

See that? The same humble dependence we must have is that of a sheep on its Shepherd. We were created to be dependent on God, and to find our joy in trusting in Him, but to get to that place, we first must recall that He is glorious and mighty.

We have to remember that He is God.

Only then, can we understand what it is to trust in Him. 

Psalm 34:8-10 “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!

Oh, fear the Lord, you his saints, for those who fear him have no lack! The young lions suffer want and hunger; but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.”

In order to take hold of these benefits, we must first seek the Lord, and to do that, we must first remember that He is Holy, and Set Apart, High and Lifted up, and never to be taken lightly or for granted. He doesn’t need you to be complete, He is complete in Himself, but you need Him to be.

Psalm 139:1-6 “O Lord, you have searched me and known me!

You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar.

You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways.

Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.

You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it.”

This must be our response.

Understanding that God is Holy and in light of that understanding that we are needy and therefore from that place of neediness finding that everything we need has been abundantly and lovingly provided for in the Lord Christ Jesus. 

Humble yourselves and worship my friends, it is what you were made for, and in so doing, you will find all that you need, basking in the light of God’s glory, and His love and care. 

Remember, we may not understand how, but God’ glory and His love are not mutually exclusive, He is both too High for us to understand, and so Personal that He is near us every day, and knows every step we take in this life. 

Psalm 139:13-16 “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb.

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance;

in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.”

I hope that these Two Things remind you of how Awesome our God is, and how weak and needy we all are before Him. He knows we are dust, and He provides for us all that we need. 

Bowing in humility, and Basking in His Glory,

--The Scribe

The (Un)Blemished Bride

What do we think of when we think of a bride? I pray that the first thing that comes to mind is pure white, the dress that symbolizes purity and innocence, as well as the willingness of a woman to be joined to the man she loves for the rest of her life.

We think of the happiness that we pray for the beautiful bride, and the hope of a life together with her soon-to-be husband that is full of joy. But have you considered what it would be like, if the bride began to walk down the aisle, everyone stands and looks, eager to see the bride dressed in pure white, only to see in disgust that the dress is stained and dirty, the veil is torn and faded, and the bride herself looks as though this marriage will bring her nothing but misery…

Not a pleasant image is it? Consider then, my friends, the Old Testament prophet Hosea. In order to set up the story, I will give a few verses before coming to the point I wish to make in writing today.
Hosea 1:2 “When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, ‘Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord.’”

Why would God do this? Why would He command Hosea to marry someone, to pledge his life to someone, who God knows is going to be unfaithful to Hosea?

Before you become indignant or confused, recall God’s dealings with Job It is much the same. In the Scriptures, whenever God does or says something we don’t understand, it is often because God wants us to reveal something about Himself, and in Job, He wanted us to see that regardless of what may happen to us, He is faithful and we have no reason to question His judgements.

The situation is similar in Hosea, for God wants us, His people, to see something about Himself. And as with Job, He reveals it to us in His Word.

Hosea is commanded to marry a wife that God knew would be unfaithful, and told Hosea this fact. True to God’s words, Gomer, Hosea’s wife, commits adultery and runs away from Hosea. And this is what God tells Hosea to do:

Hosea 3:1-3 “And the Lord said to me, “Go again, love a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, even as the Lord loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love cakes of raisins.” So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer and a lethech of barley. And I said to her, “You must dwell as mine for many days. You shall not play the whore, or belong to another man; so will I also be to you.””

Any one of us, upon knowing that the person you are to be joined to for life, was going to be unfaithful, would abandon her on the spot. However, this is not what Hosea is to do, in spite of the heart-break he must feel, God commands him to find Gomer, not only that, to love her in spite of all she had done.

And let us recall that our eyes and minds are stained and jaded by sin and the filth of this world and its ways. To us adultery is all around, but we must not forget that it is a sin, a very serious one, and in the days of Hosea it was a crime punishable by immediate death…

This was a serious offense. And yet, God wants Hosea to redeem his wife from her trouble, and indeed to live with her again. How would you like to live next to the person who betrayed your trust so brazenly, and who spurned your love so completely, by giving it away to others who did not deserve it? Could you even look at their face?

So why do I say all of this? Why do I tell you of the life of Hosea, and ask these questions?
Well recall that God here is not being mean, He is not being unjust, and He is not doing this without purpose. He wants to show His people something through the life of Hosea. Let me finish that verse from earlier:
Hosea 3:4-5 “For the children of Israel shall dwell many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or pillar, without ephod or household gods. Afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek the Lord their God, and David their king, and they shall come in fear to the Lord and to his goodness in the latter days.”

God is sending a message to His People Israel, who have rebelled against God and gone after idols and false gods. Even through all God has done for them, they still forsake Him… Sound familiar?

Jeremiah 2:1-3 “The word of the Lord came to me, saying, “Go and proclaim in the hearing of Jerusalem, Thus says the Lord, “I remember the devotion of your youth,  your love as a bride, how you followed me in the wilderness, in a land not sown. Israel was holy to the Lord, the firstfruits of his harvest. All who ate of it incurred guilt; disaster came upon them, declares the Lord.””

I think sometimes we think of God as some kind of machine, not the All-Powerful, All-Knowing, Ever-Being Creator of the Universe, and indeed, even if we think of Him as the Creator and Ruler, do we think of Him as a husband, The Lover of our souls?

This is how He thinks of us. His people Israel were special, holy, set-apart for God’s purpose and pleasure, to love Him and Him alone above all else, and to follow His Word which He personally gave to them.

There is a long history of God’s faithfulness to His people in the Old Testament, and yet the constantly turn aside, become like the other nations, and forsake God for worthless things.

Jeremiah 1:4-8 “Hear the word of the Lord, O house of Jacob, and all the clans of the house of Israel. Thus says the Lord: “What wrong did your fathers find in me that they went far from me,
and went after worthlessness, and became worthless? They did not say, ‘Where is the Lord who brought us up from the land of Egypt, who led us in the wilderness, in a land of deserts and pits, in a land of drought and deep darkness, in a land that none passes through,  where no man dwells? And I brought you into a plentiful land to enjoy its fruits and its good things. But when you came in, you defiled my land and made my heritage an abomination. The priests did not say, ‘Where is the Lord?’ Those who handle the law did not know me; the shepherds transgressed against me;  the prophets prophesied by Baal and went after things that do not profit.”

God, both here, and in Hosea is expressing His love for His people, and because of Christ’s sacrifice, we are now counted as part of God’s people, set apart for His purpose, meant to be holy as He is holy.

But the truth of the matter is, we still sin, we still run aside to other things, in spite of all of God’s faithfulness, and His love and grace being proven again and again, we still think that something else will satisfy us more, or love us better. And the truth of the matter is, nothing can satisfy us other than God, and nothing on this earth was meant to.

We were created for Him, and by Christ’s blood are reconciled to Him, for His glory, and our joy, though we may not realize it.

God wants us to come back to Him, to forsake our sin and return to Him.

Isaiah  55:6-7 ““Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake his way,  and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.”

God counts us as His Beloved Bride. He chose us before this world began to be His alone, to love Him alone, and no matter the stains of our sin He still calls to us, calling us by name, to come back to Him, and find forgiveness, repentance and satisfaction for our souls.

Don’t believe me? Trust Scripture: Isaiah 54:5-8 “For your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is his name; and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer,  the God of the whole earth he is called.
For the Lord has called you  like a wife deserted and grieved in spirit, like a wife of youth when she is cast off, says your God .For a brief moment I deserted you,  but with great compassion I will gather you. In overflowing anger for a moment I hid my face from you, but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you,” says the Lord, your Redeemer.”

And again, here in Ephesians 5:25-27: “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.”

Hosea’s story is meant to convey the way God loves us, that is, He loves us as His Bride, His Wife that He set apart for His pleasure and our unmeasurable joy and happiness. And He will complete this purpose, even in spite of our sins, for we were washed in Christ’s blood that we might be reconciled to the Lover of our souls, and that we might die to sin and be His forever (Romans 6).

And if we will forsake our sins and run to our Husband, to God, who called us out of darkness and into His glorious Light (1 Peter 2:9), this is what is promised to us:

Revelation 19:6-8 “Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out, “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns.
Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready, it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure”—for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.”

Robed in purest white, we will be given to Christ, our Redeemer, the Lamb of God who bought us with His precious blood and rose again to defeat death, so even Death will not end our union to Him, for He loves us with an everlasting love, and nothing will even snatch us out of His hands (Romans 8:38-39).

Rejoice in His divine love for you Christian! And submit yourself in humility to His Word, for He only desires that you become His Bride, pure and blameless, and He has made the Way through His Son, Jesus Christ!

Forsake all of your idols, and whore not after any lovers, for the Husband who chose you out of all, has come to redeem His Bride, and He loves you more than anything else in all of creation. Forsake all of your sins and run into His waiting arms, for with Him is all joy and pleasure, and all blessing (Psalm 36:11).

Drink deeply of His love for you.

Part of Chris’s (Un)Blemished Bride, the Church that He rescued,

--The Scribe