UNBLOCKING THE WELL OF THE LIVING WORD

DAY 17 MORNING  Read Luke 2:67-79

HABAKKUK:  JESUS CHRIST IS THE GOD OF OUR SALVATION

Jesus Christ is revealed as the God of our salvation in Habakkuk. Habakkuk was astonished when he saw that God was rousing the Babylonians. God’s answer shocks him. He asked God how he can look on the wicked and let them prosper and violently oppress the nations. Habakkuk complained to the Lord of the violence that He seemed to ignore. He called out to the Lord to deliver his nation once again, to restore the honour of his name with works of sovereign power that would shake the earth again. By the end of the book, he said “Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation.” The righteous are distinguished as those who will live by faith.  Habakkuk’s shock that the violent Babylonians were going to be God’s instrument for judgment resulted in the Lord declaring that the wicked Babylonians would themselves be judged for their sins in due course. Those who heaped up wealth and worshipped idols and caused violent bloodshed would be destroyed. God although he is holy, was able to look on the wicked and use them to judge Judah, because eventually the wicked Babylonians would be judged also in turn. Habakkuk responded by declaring he would wait quietly for that day of calamity for the Babylonians and praises the Lord, the God of his salvation. This scripture would have been a source of comfort and encouragement, to the exiles. God is revealed as angry at sin, but merciful. He values righteousness and faith in his people, judging greed and violence. He is a source of life and spiritual revival. He brings joy to his people. He rescues the faithful from the hands of the wicked, when they wait on Him.  Babylon would be judged for their wickedness. This dialogue between Habakkuk and God would have vocalized the questions that Judah would have had before exile to Babylon, while there were there. Habakkuk’s revelation that the righteous live by faith was inspirational to Paul as he wrote the book of Romans. The judgement of Babylon and the understanding that the whole earth will be filled with the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea (2:14) led to Habakkuk’s rejoicing. Though the fig tree does not blossom, which refers poetically to judgment coming in the short term through Babylon, that judgement is not forever. Habakkuk put his trust in God and waited patiently for salvation and deliverance. Ultimately that salvation and deliverance would come through Jesus Christ.

MISSIONARY MONKS: WILLIBRORD 658-739[1]

Willibrord came to the monastery at Ripon as a child and Wilfred educated him there. Willibrord when he was in his early thirties having heard that the harvest was plentiful and labourers few in the northern Europe, took eleven others and sailed to, and later ministered to, the Frisians a Germanic people living in Holland and northern Germany. He received the protection and the favour of the Frankish King Pepin and established monasteries in Utrecht and Epternach. He was selected to be bishop of Utrecht, but continued to live like a monk. He lived a life of vigils, prayers, fasting, singing of psalms, holiness and many miracles. He preached to King Radbod of the Frisians and King Ongendus of the Danes. He courageously proclaimed to a local king,[2] “The object of your worship O King, is not a God but a devil and he holds you ensnared in rank falsehood in order that he may deliver your soul to eternal fire. For there is no God but one, who created heaven and earth, the seas and all that is in them, and those who worship him in true faith will possess eternal life.” He set up monasteries in order to train and equip and commission other workers among the Frisians.

CLICK ON BOLD and you will be directed to Joshua Project website with more information for prayer.

PRAY for the Arab, Iraqi in Germany the twentieth largest unreached people group in Europe, whose language is Arabic, Mesopotamian and whose primary religion is  Islam.  There are 308,000 , 1.0% Christian and  0.3% evangelical. ”[3]   Lord you sent Willbrord to the Frisians a Germanic people living in North Germany  in the seventh century. We pray for a missions movement that will impact the Iraqi Arabs in Germany 1300 years later. We pray for the re-evangelizing of Northern Europe including the  Iraqi Arabs, and that they would learn more fully of who Jesus truly is, and come to obey Him.

DAY 17 EVENING  Psalm 81-85; Re-read Psalm 84

PSALM  84: THE PRESENCE OF GOD IN CHRIST, IS THE HEART’S TRUE HOME

Psalm 84:1,5,6,7 “How lovely is your dwelling place, Lord Almighty!My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God….Blessed are those whose strength is in you, whose hearts are set on pilgrimage. As they pass through the Valley of Baka, they make it a place of springs; the autumn rains also cover it with pools.^[d]They go from strength to strength, till each appears before God in Zion. John Wesley, [4]the Father of Methodism, rode 250,000 miles on horseback for 65 years in ministry preaching the gospel around this country until he died on 2 March 1791. As I write this, I have just completed a Christian heritage tour visiting John Wesley’s house in London and yesterday I was standing in the bedroom where he died and his last words were, “The best of all God is with us.” John Wesley knew where he was going. His heart was set on pilgrimage. In this beautiful psalm, the psalmist focused on this goal of the believer, which is to dwell with God.

Each year pilgrims from all over Israel made their way to Jerusalem for the great festivals. This is one of the songs the pilgrims would have sung on the journey and reflects their impatience to arrive, (Psalm 84: 2). The Valley of Baka, means the valley of trouble. The Lord transforms the place of tears, into a place of springs on our earthly pilgrimage if we yield it to him. Benedict, the father of Benedictine monasticism, said in his “Rule”,[5]“we must be aware that he will only listen to us if we pray not so much at length but with purity of heart and tears of compunction.”

In John Wesley’s en-suite prayer closet, the custodians have positioned a large bible and a copy of the Methodist covenant: [6] “I am no longer my own, but thine. Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt. Put me to doing, put me to suffering. Let me be employed for thee or laid aside for thee, exalted for thee or brought low for thee. Let me be full, let me be empty. Let me have all things, let me have nothing. I freely and heartily yield all things to thy pleasure and disposal. And now, O glorious and blessed God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, thou art mine, and I am thine. So be it. And the covenant which I have made on earth, let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.”

In his “Scripture as Real Presence,” Hans Boersma says, that he is convinced that [7]“everything around us is sacramental in the sense that everything God has created both points to him and makes him present.” Baptism and the Eucharist have been viewed as Sacramental in the Catholic Church, but the church fathers often used the word sacrament regarding the Scriptures. For Augustine [8]“Holy Scripture too is a sacrament inasmuch as it renders Christ present to us.”  In our earthly pilgrimage, a fresh understanding that the Scriptures are sacramental, is of the utmost importance, as the Scriptures render Christ present to us.

PRAYER  My strength is in you, I set my heart on a pilgrimage to Zion. My heart and my flesh cry out to you Lord Jesus, the living incarnate ascended resurrected Son of God.

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[1] Smither, E.L. Missionary monks, Cascade books, 2016, 93-97 (summary).

[2] Alcuin, Life of Willibrord, 10-11, quoted in Smither, E.L.  Missionary monks, Cascade books, 2016, 97.

[3] Data provided by Joshua Project https://joshuaproject.net/people_groups/12247/GM

[4] Pollock, J. Wesley: The Preacher, Kingsway, 2000, 257-260.

[5] Benedict, The Rule, Penguin, 2008, Chapter 41, 20.

[6] The Methodist Covenant. https://www.methodist.org.uk/about-us/the-methodist-church/what-is-distinctive-about-methodism/a-covenant-with-god/#:~:text=Methodists%20hold%20an%20annual%20Covenant,lives%20and%20choices%20to%20God.

[7] Boersma, H. Scripture as Real presence, Baker Publishing, 2017, 1.

[8] Boersma, H. Scripture as Real presence, Baker Publishing, 2017, 2.