Saturday Night Musings

   Great is thy faithfulness, O God my father! There is no shadow of turning with thee. Thou changest not, Thy compassions they fail not; As thou hast been Thou forever wilt be. Great is thy faithfulness! Great is thy faithfulness! Morning by morning new mercies I see; all I have needed Thy hand hath provided—Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord unto to me.  (Thomas O. Chisholm) “It is of the LORD’S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness” Lamentations 3:22,23. 

One of the clearest pictures of the mercies of God is the morning by morning daily provision of manna in the wilderness. The children of Israel were to gather exactly the amount of manna they needed for the day that would sustain their families. Manna was not to be held over for the next day for it would smell and breed worms. On the sixth day however, they were to gather twice the amount they needed for they could not gather it on the Sabbath. On the Sabbath day, the manna did not rot nor did it have worms. Great is Thy faithfulness!  

I graduated from Liberty University in May of 1975. Dr. Elmer Towns gave me a verse that has sustained me for more than 30 years in the gospel ministry—”Faithful is he that calleth you, who will also do it” I Thessalonians 5:24. Truly God has been good to Israel and he has been faithful to me as he said he would be. He has been nearer to me than the air that courses my lungs or the blood that flows through my veins. God has been as he has promised he would be to me, my family, and the ministry he has trusted to my care. I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. His unfailing mercies, how precious! Great is thy faithfulness, O God my father!  

God is faithful to his people Israel. While they were carried off into captivity and lived in a heathen domain, God would keep his word and re-establish them again to their home land. On May 14, 1948, the Sixth Star flag of David was raised and now flies over the land of the Bible, the Land of Israel. God keeps His word even when it seems that all hope has been taken away. There is no shadow of turning with him, He is the same today as he was yesterday and forever will be. As thou hast been Thou forever wilt be.  

God is faithful with the plan that he has for us. He loves us just the way we are, but loves too much to leave us the way we are. We are his workmanship and by his hand we are being shaped and conformed daily into his image. Israel is God’s chosen people, they now have sinew on their bones, they are strong, and they have a purpose. But they have no spirit. One day they shall see him as he splits the Eastern sky, their eyes will be opened and they will look on him whom they pierced. Even “If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful, he can not deny himself” II Timothy 2:13. There is no shadow of turning with him. 

God is more than faithful in forgiving our sins. He will remove them as far as the east is from the west and remember them no more. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleans us for all unrighteousness” I John 1:9. Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth, thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide, strength for today and a bright hope for tomorrow—blessings all mine, with ten thousands beside. Great is Thy faithfulness!

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  Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people! (Jeremiah 9:1) And let them make haste, and take up a wailing for us, that our eyes may run down with tears, and our eyelids gush out with waters. (Jeremiah 9:18) But if ye will not hear it, my soul shall weep in secret places for your pride; and mine eye shall weep sore, and run down with tears, because the LORD’S flock is carried away captive. (Jeremiah 13:17) Therefore thou shalt say this word unto them; Let mine eyes run down with tears night and day, and let them not cease: for the virgin daughter of my people is broken with a great breach, with a very grievous blow. (Jeremiah 14:17) 

Jeremiah was called to be a prophet unto the people of God while still in his mother’s womb. He was but a child when God spoke to him to become His spokesperson to the nations. He never married, however he stood before Kings being loyal and faithful to the one who called him with a heart that was broken over the sin of his people. The people of God were believing and behaving as the heathen in their practices. They were abusing God’s grace and mercy—”Their foot shall slide in due time, for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste”, Deut. 32:35. Jeremiah’s eyes were swollen with tears and his lips trembled as he cried out for repentance before God’s hand would move against them.  

Their sin was written with a pen of iron and with the point of a diamond. Jeremiah’s pain was perpetual with an incurable wound. They would rot as did the girdle around Jeremiah’s waist and they would drink their new wine till they would be carried off into captivity. They indeed became: “Sinners in the hands of an angry God”! (Jonathan Edwards).  Divorce rate in America is at 50%. Abortion on demand has murdered some 42 million American babies who have lost their unalienable right to life, their liberty, and their pursuit of happiness since January 20, 1973.  Alcohol is found in one of two every two houses in America. Pornography can be easily downloaded on every computer in America. Teenage suicide is a threat to every teenager in America.  

Churches today have more dramas for worship settings, more entertainment from comedians, and more games than old-time preaching of the gospel. Preachers can get more people to laugh at their jokes than to weep over their sin. We want to be funny more than followers of Jesus. We need weeping prophets of God more than ever today who will eat carpet while on their faces day and night having a fountain of tears flowing from the blood-shot eyes.  

Where are the fountain of tears from the eyes of our school teachers, from our politicians, from our  parents and from our preachers? We the people have gotten to the place where we can no longer blush over sin. Our hearts have grown to the lukewarm-ness of the flesh, we are neither hot or cold. It only remains (not if) when God will spew His tolerances out of His mouth.  

The prophet of God whose eyes were a fountain of tears died with a broken heart having never seen any response to his preaching, seeing his beloved city burned with fire and his people were carried off into captivity for seventy years! For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.  

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Were you there when they crucified my Lord? Were you there when they nailed him to the tree? Were you there when they pierced him in the side? Were you there when they laid him in the tomb? Oh! Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble. Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

This old Negro spiritual can take anyone anywhere and make them feel as they were standing at the foot of the old rugged cross observing the suffering of our blessed Lord, the Son of God as he dies for the sin of the world. You feel His pain, you sense the abandonment of the Father toward His only begotten Son, and you cry aloud for deliverance as the spear is driven deep into His side. You hear him utter his last words, “Father into thy hands I commend my spirit” as the hopelessness of the hour has riveted your soul to the sealed death warrant issued from the foundation of the world. You watch closely how they remove him from the cross, pulling the nails out of harmless flesh,  rolling him up in a shroud and carrying  him to a new tomb wherein never a man has lain.  All of your fears suddenly grips your soul as you hear the thud of the stone coming to a stop sealing the dark grave from the one who once said: “I am the resurrection and the life”! Were you there when they crucified my Lord?  

Were you there as they mercilessly despised and rejected this man of sorrows who came to his own and his own banned him from society? He was prophesied to be the Lamb of God who came to sacrifice his life for you and me, he did this by taking upon himself the form of a servant, made in the likeness of men and became obedient to death, the death of a cross. He was that tender plant—but one who lived with grief and was hated with a passion. We hid as it were our faces from him, we saw no beauty in him to desire him, and we lifted up our heel against him. Were you there when they nailed him to the tree? 

Were you there as he bore our griefs, as he carried our sorrows and was wounded for our transgressions? Were you there as he was bruised for our iniquities, punished for our peace and divinely smitten of God? Behold this man who as more than a man, he was that God-man, for no man could withstand this kind of satanic brutality. With his stripes we are forever forgiven and spiritually healed from a damming disease that has crippled all men. Because the Lord has laid on him all my sin removing them as far as the East is from the West, I have escape the judgment of God and the eternal lake of fire. Were you there when they pierced him in the side?  

Were you there as they took him as a lamb to the slaughter, afflicted and oppressed? He said not a word as he came to fulfill the volume of the book written of him. He was ostracized from the beginning with a price on his head as a blasphemer, a revolutionary bigot, and one guilty of equating himself as God. He was cut off out the land of the living as if he were a leper and unclean.  They laughed him to scorn, they mocked him, and nailed him to a tree. Were you there when they laid him in the tomb?  

Were you there as his soul revives and breath enters the corpse again? Were you there as he comes from the grave to justify many and now sitting on the right hand of God making intercession for transgressors?  Oh! Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.  

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Among the many keepsakes that I have given Jeanie over the years is an old football cleat which I gave to her following a Friday night football game. I guess this memento is a man’s thing with me, she has more desirable things she has held on to for these better than 44 years of marriage. Tangibles have a way of loosing their importance, but the true-love that has been in both of our lives is the love that is stronger than death!  The flame that started out with a simple touch has been burning with tenderness which can only be compared to the power of death—of which nothing can match its grip.  Our marriage is strong and has surpassed some of the most difficult times.  

 “Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame.  Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it: if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned”, Song of Solomon 8:6 7.   

The young Shulammite girl that has been swept off her feet by the charming shepherd desires only one thing—the engraving of her person upon the heart of the King. She wants God and everyone to see the visible outward marks of his strength that flows from his heart. It is the seal which will bond the tie that becomes totally inseparable. She is not secured with football cleats, but with a sensitive, caring, unconditional love that will engulf her to a fulfilled and satisfied lady. She is thrilled that he “worships the ground she walks on”! The seal of the King is his bond and his bond is his word. His word is more valuable that all the Kings horses and all the Kings men. 

The love that is stronger than death is a love that never losses its purpose. It is a love that will swallow up its partners as a grave does its victims. The grave is a jealous hold that will not let even one escape its clutches. So is this love that is stronger than death. It is that love which will not suffer anything to overcome it’s end in life. Love that is cruel is that love which will empower and overpower all that can come against it. 

The love that is stronger than death is a burning love that can never be quenched by all the waters that is in the universe. The rains will come down, the floods will come up, the wind will beat across this life long union that is in the will of God—and it will never fail. The love that is stronger than death is that love that will endure all that hell can unleash against it. O death where is your sting, O grave where is your victory,—give us your best shot. Our God is a great God and He will get the glory for the survival of our lives. 

The love that is stronger than death is a love that has no equal to the abundance that is found in this world. Money can buy things, but it can not buy love. The young Shulammite girl counts all the wealth in this world as mere dung compared to the gifts that flows from the Kings heart which he showers on her every day. The King so loved her in that he gave himself—a true love that is stronger than death! 

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