UNBLOCKING THE WELL OF THE LIVING WORD

DAY 29 MORNING Read Revelation 21:9-26

NEHEMIAH: JESUS OUR HEAVENLY INTERCESSOR CARRIES A PRAYER  BURDEN FOR THE REBUILDING OF ZION! 

At the beginning of this book, Nehemiah receives the burden of the Lord as he hears about the broken walls of Jerusalem. He heard that the remnant who had survived the exile is in great trouble and shame. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates are destroyed by fire. As soon as I heard these words I sat down and wept and mourned for days and I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven. Jesus our heavenly intercessor is praying for the re-building of Zion  Nehemiah receives permission from King Artaxerxes to go to Jerusalem. He arrives and sees for himself. Work began on the rebuilding of the gates of Jerusalem, the Sheep gate, Fish gate, Old gate, Dung gate, and  Fountain Gate. Many people worked on building the gates of Jerusalem from a wide variety of backgrounds.This was a God commissioned task that the Jews gave themselves to wholeheartedly. However Sanaballat makes a plot to attack the Israelites.  Half the Israelites work and half are armed with spears. Nehemiah is angry that there is social injustice and they were  guilty again  of  the same injustice that  had sent the Israelites into exile. It needed to be rooted out again. Sanballat tried to stop  the building of the walls by distracting Nehemiah and sent Shemaiah to play on Nehemiah’s fears and to try to encourage him to hide in the temple. Nehemiah would not be distracted.  The wall was built. Ezra read the law and the people heard about the character of God and they understand, the weep and then they rejoice. The hearts of the people  were beginning to turn back to God. This was a new day! The returned exiles having heard the law of God read by Ezra and understood it , they now put it into practice  promising not to engage in to intermarriage, to keep the Sabbath and to pay tithes. The dedication of the wall took place with much rejoicing with Levites inspired by the worship of King David. This would have underlined that the returning of the exiles to Jerusalem was  both to rebuild the physical wall and to rebuild spiritually too. The building of the was accomplished, “with the help of God.” Nehemiah is angry when he realizes that many abuses are taking place not consistent with the Law. He removes these practices including, marriage to foreign woman, ignoring the Sabbath and not giving the Levite portion.  The returning exiles had rejected the disobedience of their forefathers and now lived by the covenant, rejecting old practices and obeying the Law. Although the book of Nehemiah relates how the rebuilding of Jerusalem is accomplished, our hearts are warmed by Nehemiah’s intercessory burden for Jerusalem. Jesus our heavenly intercessor is praying for the re-building of Zion.   

MISSIONARY MONKS: WYCLIF AND THE LOLLARDS 1328-1384[1] 

John Wyclif came from Yorkshire in England and was a student in Oxford and spent much of his life as an academic, and he retired from Oxford to be a priest in Lutterworth. He wanted to make the Bible available to ordinary people and translated it into the English vernacular of his day. Although the Psalms had been translated by Richard Rolle, and other parts of the Bible had been translated into English, Wyclif’s translation was the first one of the entire Bible. He sent out “poor priests” who preached to whoever might listen, in churches and in church yards but also on village greens and on the roads. Wyclif gave these preachers tracts and sermon outlines to help them. They were called Lollards and attracted a large following including some  members of the gentry, who protected the travelling preachers. After Wyclif died King Henry V ruthlessly supressed the Lollards. In 1438 the Pope commanded that the remains of Wyclif be dug up and removed from consecrated ground and burnt. The writings of Wyclif gave shape to the coming revolt against Catholic church.

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

PRAY for “the South Asian, general in  Netherlands the twenty-seventh largest unreached people group in Europe, whose language is  Hindi  and whose primary religion is Hinduism. There are 230,000, 4.0% Christian and  1.0% evangelical.” [2]  We pray for the South Asians who  live mostly in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, Utrecht and Almere. We pray that the Gospel would be preached and modelled to the South Asians in the Netherlands. Raise up South Asian workers, preachers  and evangelists to reach this people group.   

DAY 29 EVENING Psalm 141-145, Re-read Psalm 145

PSALM 145: I WILL SING OF YOUR RIGHTEOUS ACTS OF SALVATION, LORD JESUS CHRIST.

Psalm 145:3-7“Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise; his greatness no one can fathom.One generationcommends your works to another;they tellof your mighty acts.They speak of the glorious splendourof your majesty—and I will meditate on your wonderful works. They tellof the power of your awesome works—and I will proclaimyour great deeds. They celebrate your abundant goodnessand joyfully singof your righteousness.” “You brought music back into the house .. I had forgotten..”[3] are the words of Captain Georg von Trapp to Maria, the vivacious nun, after the death of his wife, in The Sound of Music. In pre-war Austria, the contrast between foreboding evil, and delightful innocence and gratitude for God, is celebrated  in song with 7 young children, and  is deeply moving. Celebrating God’s acts in the past and his goodness, praising and worshipping Him in words and in song, for who He is and what he has done is a pervading theme in the book of psalms. Fee and Stuart say[4] that the Psalms were “carefully arranged to mirror the story of Israel from the time of David until after the exile…. written for the individual who is aware of being part of the people of God who together belong to God in covenant relationship and share the same story.” It has been the practice of the Christian church in Europe for the past 2000 years, particularly in the monastic expressions of the church, throughout the centuries, through thick and thin, to sing and celebrate and remember the abundant goodness of God and joyfully sing of His righteousness and to live in and inhabit the psalms. Karl Barth says[5] “it is no accident that of all the books of the Old Testament the Psalter has always been found the most relevant. This is not in spite of the fact, but just because of it, that in so many passages it echoes the people of the covenant trembling for its preservation, in final extremity before it’s all-powerful enemies. The Christian community always has good reason to see itself in this people, and to take on its own lips the words of its helpless sighing, the cries which it utters from the depths of its need.”

Brueggeman says [6]“the songs are a centrepiece of Christian liturgy piety and spirituality. They have been so from the beginning of the Christian movement for good reason. They have been found poignant in expression, able to empower believing imagination in remarkable ways. This is evident in the rich use made of the Psalms through the New Testament most especially in the passion of Jesus. But the use of the Psalms by Christians is not without awkwardness for the psalms are relentlessly Jewish in their mode of expression and in the faith claims. And with our best intent for generosity and good faith the different nuances of Jewish and Christian faith are not to be overlooked or easily accommodated. A long-standing practice (going back to the very early Christian interpretation) is to treat the Psalms as claims about Jesus Christ. In the tradition of Augustine for example there is a tendency to find hints about the life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus at many points in the Psalms. It is not easy to know how to assess such a practice. On the one hand it may seem to make the Psalms more readily available for Christian use. On the other hand, I suggest such ‘spiritualising’ tends to tone down the Psalms down and avoid the abrasive and offensive elements. On balance, I believe it is more helpful to avoid such a practice. We will be helped to a more genuine piety and an authentic faith, if we engage the Psalms as poetry about our common, particular humanness. Nothing should be done that detracts from that reality. Facing such a Christian alternative we should be more attentive to the rawness of Jewish faith out of which the Psalms speak. But there is another alternative. It is in the prayers of Jesus that we may link Jewish ways of praying and Christological interpretation. For the prayers of Jesus are surely prayers of a Jew. And the entire tradition of Christian prayer and Christian use of the Psalms must be seen in this light. This gives us warrant for christological interpretation, but the centrality of Jesus can never be far separated from the Jewish character of the material.”[7]

PRAYER I will remember your l abundant goodness in the middle of a sobering time on the world stage.

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[1]  Latourette, R.S. A history of Christianity beginnings to 1500 volume 1, Prince Press, 2003, 662-666, (Summary)

[2] Data provided by Joshua Project https://joshuaproject.net/people_groups/19211/NL

[3] The Sound of Music https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059742/

[4] Fee, D and Stuart, D. How to read the bible book by book, Zondervan, 2014,  132, 133, 131.

[5] Barth, K. Church Dogmatics, Zondervan Academic, 2022 IV.2, 671.

[6] Brueggemann, W. Praying the Psalms, Authentic, 2007, 43-46.

[7] Bible Project The Psalms https://bibleproject.com/podcast/series/psalms-study/