At the outset of another year we would venture to suggest to our interested readers, some avenues of thought wherein may be discovered subject matter of a sober, sustaining and soul sanctifying nature. We live in difficult times, charged with much uncertainty on man’s side; but times nevertheless which cannot alter the unchanging Jehovah, in any respect whatsoever. His glory, goodness and claims remain the same, yesterday, to-day, and for ever. And so let us turn our thoughts to several considerations.
Perplexity is a common experience among the children of men. Trouble and distress are frequently accompanied by perplexity, that is, confusion, embarrassment and suspense, arising from concern as to the ultimate outcome. Sinners and saints alike, and even nations as such, have known, in the season of adversity, what it means to be perplexed, while awaiting either increased trouble or relief and deliverance. The believer upon the Lord Jesus Christ is therefore no stranger to perplexity, inasmuch as he is a partaker of tribulation in this world, in his spiritual experience as also in providence. The Psalmist was indeed perplexed when as in Psalm cxlii. 4, he records, “I looked on my right hand and behold, but there was no man that would know me: refuge failed me; no man cared for my soul.” As far as any arm of flesh is concerned, the Christian in distress has found himself alone, unaided and helpless, hardly knowing what to do, where to turn, or what was to become of him, until guided and enabled by the Holy Spirit to look anew to the Most High as his refuge, strength and present help in trouble. Further, the Church of Christ as a visible and organised body, and where a clear testimony for Truth is preserved, has its trials and perplexing problems. Sometimes these obviously emanate from Satan, at other times from the Christ-hating world, and again from unfaithful and backsliding professors of religion. But Paul writes of a similar state of affairs in his own day, thus, “We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed: we are perplexed, but not in despair” (II Cor. iv. 8).
And in our own remarkably solemn and disturbing days internationally, the words of the Saviour, in Luke xxi. 25, seem so applicable, “. . . and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity.” And, therefore, to whom can we go in perplexity? Should not a people seek unto Him who is a strong tower in the day of trouble, the mighty God of Jacob.
The Divine Power is an ever present reality. David asserts in Psalm lxxii. 11, as he does repeatedly, “. . . that power belongeth unto God;” and this is a doctrine and theme which permeates the Bible, wherein is revealed the glory of God in the exercising of His power as Creator, and in His righteousness, justice, mercy and goodness, in providence and grace. We read, “. . . through the greatness of thy power shall thine enemies submit themselves unto thee” (Ps. lxxvi. 3); and again in the same Psalm, “He turned the sea into dry land; they went through the flood on foot: there did we rejoice in him” (verse 6). The Lord Jesus Christ, as God, exercises this power against the enemies of the divine Name and for the promotion of the divine glory and purposes in every respect. He has also power and authority as Mediator which He lovingly wields in the behalf of His people and Church, whom He loved, redeemed by His precious blood, and called by His grace into His fellowship. And further, the risen Lord and Saviour, now at God’s right hand, announced to the Apostles prior to His ascension that, “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.” This power delegated to the Son of God in human nature, encompasses heaven and earth, and He will exercise it till the Judgment of the Great Day. And this to the end that multitudes of sinners among all nations be saved; that believers be sustained, comforted and fitted for heaven; that all the purposes and promises of God respecting men, nations and the whole earth, be fulfilled; and that finally all His enemies be made His footstool. The Church at Pentecost laid hold of this power, by believing and united prayer in “an upper room.” And we need the spirit of wrestling Jacob to-day, to obtain power in the time of perplexity, and to accompany the gospel, to heal a backsliding nation, and to cause men on the earth to turn their swords into ploughshares.
There is the precious matter of Prayer. The spirit of prayer is implanted in the soul of every sinner regenerated by the Holy Spirit, and is a vital and blessed means of communion with God in the life and experience of such. It is, as the Shorter Catechism states, “An offering up of our desires unto God, for things agreeable to His will, in the name of Christ; with confession of our sins, and thankful acknowledgment of His mercies.” And throughout the Scriptures prayer is prominently presented to us as engaged in by men and women who greatly feared God and turned to Him whose “. . . hand is not shortened that it cannot save: neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear” (Isa. lix. 1). How varied their circumstances, their spiritual and temporal needs, petitions, and the answers received from heaven! If, for example, we examine the “prayer cases” of Jacob, Hannah, David, Jeremiah, the publican in the Temple, the thief on the Cross, and of the Apostles in their history and epistles; what a wealth of divinely inspired information and guidance there is at the disposal of the exercised believer. These called on God and had recourse to His mercy and power. So our perplexities, and such as are impersonal, from which the Christian cannot dissociate himself, call at once for prayer and in certain cases, for importunate prayer. As Jesus says, “Men ought always to pray and not to faint.” And surely the times characterised by trouble and rebuke, cry aloud for prayer, more prayer, and increased secret prayer.
There is the obligation to praise God from whom all blessings flow. The holy priesthood of believers involves the offering up of spiritual sacrifices, acceptable unto God, by Jesus Christ (see I Peter ii. 5); and God reminds His people that, “Whoso offereth praise glorifieth me” (Ps. 1. 23). So God is worthy to be praised for what He is as a just God and a Saviour; for the revelation of His power and glory in judgment and mercy toward the children of men; for the hope of eternal life and glory in the gospel of His Son Jesus Christ, who was dead but is now alive for evermore; for past and present mercies both spiritual and temporal; and for what He promises yet to do for His people while still sojourners on this earth, and when they pass through and go beyond the valley of the shadow of death, into the everlasting Kingdom of their Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. And so believers have need of constant and increased enlightenment by the Spirit of Truth, respecting those matters wherein God manifests His infinite worthiness of being honoured, feared and praised; that grace may be sought to address their souls thus, “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me bless his holy name . . . and forget not all his benefits” (Ps. ciii. 102).