Do you have any regrets? Perhaps words you have spoken and can’t take back? Or a relationship you should never have started?

Second Samuel, chapter 11 tells us of the time when King David was relaxing on the roof of the palace when he saw a woman bathing. Attracted by her beauty he invited her over. But she was the wife of one of his officers. He’s away, he may have thought. And, I am the king.

But Bathsheba became pregnant, and David’s attempts to arrange for her husband, Uriah to return home and sleep with her, failed. So he developed a more devious plan. Uriah was sent back to the battlefield and positioned so that he would die. Like the ophthalmologist in Woody Allen’s Crimes and Misdemeanors who had an affair and then arranged a murder, King David seemed to have committed the perfect crime.

But David had forgotten God. In Second Samuel chapter 12, we learn that Nathan the prophet arranged to meet the King. Knowing the power of kings, Nathan told a story of a wealthy man who had many sheep and a poor man who had just one little lamb. When the rich man needed a sheep for a meal to entertain a guest, instead of taking a sheep from his own flock, he took the poor man’s lamb. David, a former shepherd, was furious: ‘The man should be brought to justice,’ he said. Nathan’s response? ‘You are the man!’

The heading of Psalm 51 reveals that David wrote it following his affair. It is a complex, very personal psalm, but is timeless in its application as it also speaks to us about ourselves and about God. It is so important that I am repeating, with tweaks, what I have written before.

Have mercy on me, O God, David begins. His cry for mercy reveals that he understood he had no right to expect God’s favor. But because God had sent the prophet Nathan to speak to him, David understood that God had not forgotten his promise. He therefore not only cries for mercy but also appeals to God’s covenant love and compassion: Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love. Have me mercy on me, O God, according to your abundant mercy (51:3).

Confession. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me, David continues (51:3). Fully aware of his guilt before God, he didn’t just regret what he had done. He truly repented of his actions.

It’s important we think about this. David had tried to cover up and excuse what he had done. It’s something we’re all tempted to do. Over the last 100 years or so, academia has provided us with more and more excuses for what we do. Freud taught us to blame our parents. Marx taught us to blame the capitalist system. And 21st century medicine tells us to blame our DNA. But our guilt can fester and re-appear. It’s sometimes why we can’t sleep.

We need to do as David did: speak to the Lord. Against you, you alone, have I sinned, he said. But what about Bathsheba and Uriah? With his words David is voicing something we all have to reckon with: our sin is first and foremost against God. Adultery and murder are second commandment issues. But when we break the second commandment – love your neighbor as yourself – we are in fact breaking the first, for the second is consequent upon the first. Sin against our neighbor is primarily sin against God.

Contrary to what psychology and psychiatry might tell us, guilt is not just a psychological hang-up. It is something objective, something real, because it arises from thoughts, words and acts that stand between us and our Maker. The God who rules the universe is not just some impersonal force. He is a moral being, an awesome holy judge. When we fail God, we offend him. As David recognizes, God’s anger towards him, as it is towards us, is just.

The pricks of conscience we feel, reflect our awareness of an objective moral order and the existence of God. It’s not enough for the psychotherapist to help us come to terms with our guilt. It’s not even enough for the human beings we have hurt to tell us they forgive us. We are all accountable to God.

See how David puts it: You are justified, God, in your judgment, for against you alone, have I sinned… And, he adds, Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me (51:5).

David knows that his sins are the outcome of a self-centered nature. He’s not speaking against his mother nor the nature of his conception; nor is he blaming her for his actions. Rather he makes a chilling statement about human nature: no one of us is intrinsically good. As Psalm 130 says, If you, O Lord, should mark our iniquities, Lord who could stand? And as Paul the Apostle writes in Romans, chapter 3, verse 23: We have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

Yet human wisdom today fails to recognize this reality. It is something that impacts every arena of life – politics and the courts, economics and education, family, local community and international relations. Malcolm Muggeridge, one-time editor of the English Punch magazine wrote: The depravity of humanity is at once the most unpopular of all dogmas, but the most empirically verifiable.

Cleansing: You desire truth in the inward being, David continues; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart (51:6). If we are going to find peace of mind and heart, it’s in our minds and hearts that the process of acquiring God’s wisdom must begin. What’s buried in our thoughts needs to be exposed before God.

Consider David’s further words:  Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have crushed rejoice. Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities (51:7-10).

We need more than the band-aid of education or more laws. It’s not just isolated acts of sin we need to be cleansed from, but the powerful grip of our self-centerdness.

Yet, as even the Old Testament reveals, God is willing to forgive. Psalm 130 tells us, But there is forgiveness with you (Lord)…

However, it is not until we come to the New Testament that we learn the true cost for God to cleanse us. In Colossians 2:13 we read: And you who were dead in your trespasses … God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by cancelling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.

Heart-Change. Create in me a pure heart, O God, David continues (51:10). Too often our problem is that we don’t want to pray this prayer. Indeed, unless God’s mercy and grace are at work within us, we won’t want to change. But David also knows that he can’t presume on God’s mercy. That is why he also says, take not your Holy Spirit from me (51:11).

How we need to pray with David: Restore to me the joy of your salvation (51:12). Restore reminds us that God was no stranger to David. He could recall times when things were different, when he had enjoyed an intimate close friendship with God. Now, more than anything else, he wanted to experience again the joy of that relationship.

‘All I can bring, Lord,’ David continues, is a broken and contrite heart (51:17). He knew that as well as being pure and just, God is also willing to forgive us and set us on a new course of life that is good and honors him. How often we need to meditate on this.

There it is. A very personal, complex psalm with many layers. King David’s cry for God’s mercy is not so much a psalm for a General Confession in the gathering of God’s people, but a psalm for our own personal reflection and prayer in the privacy of our own relationship with the Lord.

Before you go to sleep tonight, let me encourage you to reflect on your own relationship with the Lord with this psalm open before you. Be honest with him, asking him to forgive you for failing to honor him at all times in your life. Pray that his Word and his Spirit will bring about the changes that God in his perfect wisdom knows are for your best, so you may know the joy of his perfect forgiveness and love. Pray further that the Lord will give you the opportunities and the courage to share with family and friends the joy you have found in him.

Where is our hope in life? It is in Christ alone because of God’s amazing grace.

A prayer. Lord God, without you we are not able to please you; mercifully grant that your Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

© John G. Mason

The Bible is a book without pictures. This is because there’s an essential, impenetrable mystery about God. To try to paint a picture of God reduces his eternal nature to dimensions that can be comprehended by the human mind. But when we think about it, such a truncated, ordinary God is God no longer.

How then can we begin to grasp God’s awesome majesty, holiness and power? The answer is that because relationship is at the heart of his nature, we come to know him through words. When it comes to the Being of God, the pen can communicate the mystery of God in a way that an artist’s brush cannot.

Psalm 139, sometimes called the crown of Hebrew poetry, is an intensely moving meditation on the invisible attributes of God. In it the power of words brings us into the presence of God whom the Apostle Peter calls the majestic glory (2 Peter 1:17).

We can identify four themes in the psalm.

1. God is all-seeing. In verse 1 we read: 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 far away.

National security authorities have an extraordinary capacity to tap into our phone calls and read our tweets and email. Furthermore, our every move is increasingly watched by CCTV.

Three millennia ago, King David knew that he too, was observed by an all-seeing eye. But in his case, he knew that his thoughts, as well as his actions, were observed. He tells us in this Psalm that this Watcher is not a mere, passive, receptor of information like a spy satellite, but a master detective who sees every detail of our existence. ‘You know me, Lord,’ David is saying. ‘I have nowhere from which I can exclude you. Everything is open to your gaze.’

While we might feel threatened by the thought that we’re being watched by a ‘Big Brother’ figure, David doesn’t see it that way. Yes, his words in verse 5 seem to suggest he feels trapped, You hem me in behind and before, you have laid your hand upon me. But his words, you hem me in can also be translated, ‘you guard me’ or ‘you encircle me for my protection’. The wider context of the psalm supports this.

David views God’s all-embracing knowledge as a refuge: Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, he says in v.6. He is not resentful of God’s all-seeing intelligence. The more I learn about you, David is saying, the more awesome and mysterious I find you.

2. God is always-present. Consider verses 7 through 10: Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast.

David, for a moment, considers flight from the all-seeing eyes of God. He wonders if there’s somewhere in the universe where he can escape from God. But the minute the idea enters his mind he sees how impossible it is. God not only knows everything, but he’s also everywhere. If David could blast off into the stratosphere, plunge into the depths of the seas, travel to the farthest reaches touched by the dawning light, he knows he couldn’t escape God.

At times we may feel frustrated with God’s presence. However, the context indicates that this is not what David felt. He didn’t want to get away from God. Rather, he is grateful for God’s all-embracing presence – to guide him and keep him secure.

Verses 11ff assure us that God is utterly dependable, no matter the situation, day or night: If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night,” even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you.

David’s response to God’s knowledge and presence is so different from our response to the ever-increasing surveillance systems around us. What if such information was to fall into hostile hands? Yet there is an irony here: the more we see our dependence on human surveillance capabilities, the less dependent we become on God. David knows that God is loving and just in all his ways. God isn’t fickle; he won’t distort and manipulate the picture.

3. God alone is the creator (139:13). For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

The birth of a child is a mysterious and wonderful thing. David had nothing of our 21st C knowledge of human genetics and embryology. He knew nothing of DNA or chromosomes, and had never seen a living foetus on an ultra-sound scan. But he knew enough to be amazed that something as complex as a human was formed inside a woman’s womb.

And he understood that there is only one explanation for this amazing miracle: the work of God. In verse 14 he says: I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

There is something immensely moving and immensely touching for David about God’s work and presence in his life. How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God! (139:17)

He is aware of God’s personal interest in every detail of his existence – including his weaknesses and fears. He is also aware that with every new day God is still at work, directing the course of his life. He finds it an immensely precious comfort in all his human vulnerability.

Significantly, David traces his beginning as a person, to the moment of conception: You created my inmost being, he says to God.

You knit me together in my mother’s womb (v.13).

Even in embryo he was a person, not just another part of his mother’s body. Psalm 139 speaks so plainly about the human identity of the unborn – from the moment of conception.

4. God – the all-holy One (Psalm 139:19): O that you would kill the wicked, O God,…

David is aware of intrigue and corruption around him – of godless, violent men and women who are intent on evil, who mock the spiritual and moral sensitivity of anyone who speaks of God. He has a choice: he must either identify with the ruthless and their unscrupulous ways, or he must find the courage to be different – to be a man of principle, godliness and integrity.

In this closing stanza David reveals his decision: to put God before personal popularity and personal safety. His decision is a challenge for us. We may be powerless to prevent godless people from carrying out their evil schemes. David prayed for God’s judgment to fall on them. He refused to number them among his friends.

His concluding prayer for himself, is a model for us. In verses 23 and 24 we read: Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts. See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

God longs that we pray this prayer, not because there is something he doesn’t know about us, but because he wants our friendship. He wants a relationship with us that will enable him to cleanse us from every offensive way and lead us in the way everlasting. For us who live on the other side of the blood that Jesus shed on the cross at Calvary, it means turning to him in repentance, laying the burden of our sin at the foot of the cross, and hearing his, I forgive you.

A prayer. Almighty God, we thank you for the gift of your holy word. May it be a lantern to our feet, a light to our paths, and strength to our lives. Take us and use us to love and serve all people in the power of the Holy Spirit and in the name of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

© John G. Mason

‘Count your blessings, name them one by one, and it will surprise you what the Lord has done,’ are words from an old Christian song. How easily we forget to thank God for the countless good things he provides for us. Most of them are unknown to us. We take it all for granted.

But there is something else we forget; King David writes about it in Psalm 103. It seems he wrote this for the great choir he established in Jerusalem. It reflects his personal growth in his understanding of God.

With his opening and concluding words, Bless the Lord, O my soul, we find that this song has the tone of a personal reflection. His exhortation is directed to his inner self – a theme that he especially develops in the first five verses.

In reminding himself of all God’s benefits he begins by focusing on the forgiveness and healing that God held out to him. This suggests the psalm was perhaps another reflection on his affair with Bathsheba and his illness in the aftermath when he was deeply depressed. Assured now that the sin that had caused his sickness was forgiven, he reflects on the extraordinary mercy of the Lord.

Significantly, David didn’t attribute his recovery to good medical care or healthy foods. Rather, he sees his deliverance as nothing less than God’s personal involvement in his life. He doesn’t even attribute his deliverance to the power of prayer. Instead, he reflects on God’s mercy: The Lord works vindication and justice for all who are oppressed. He made known his ways to Moses, his acts to the people of Israel (103:6-7).

‘My experience,’ he says, ‘is an example of a general truth about God that I read in the Scriptures.’ At the time of Moses God broke into the experience of an entire nation. He revealed what a just and righteous God he is when he delivered his people from oppression in Egypt and opened a way for them to enter the land of Canaan. God showed himself to be merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love (103:8).

Now, it’s important that we think about this. We can’t scientifically prove that God is at work in our lives. Nor can we prove that God answers our prayers. If anyone wants to interpret events some other way, we can’t prove them wrong. All we can say is that our personal experience and the testimony of the Bible mesh together in a way that we find personally convincing. We know God is real because somehow everything hangs together and fits. It rings true. This helps us when we think about our faith, or we are looking into faith.

Years ago, when I was re-thinking my position about my faith, I looked for some kind of logical argument that concluded, ‘The New Testament is true’ and ‘Jesus did rise from the dead’. When I found that the Bible never even tried to offer reasoning along these lines, I felt let down. Then I realized that faith, as the Bible reveals it, is not a logical deduction. We can’t prove that God exists and then decide we’re going to believe in him. This doesn’t mean that faith is a leap in the dark: it is grounded in historical reality.

As others have observed, ‘faith isn’t a logical deduction, it’s closer to what scientists call a paradigm shift’ – what the Germans call a Gestalt phenomenon.

Faith is a new way of looking at the world that makes convincing sense of it. David wasn’t speculating when he spoke of a God who forgives his sin and heals his diseases. He was reflecting on the point that the Bible makes compelling sense of our human experience. The Bible and David’s experience of God meshed together. This is how it feels as we grow in our understanding of the Lord and see him at work in our lives.

Significantly, David didn’t go on to list all the specific things God had done for him. Rather he focused on essential features of God’s character – God’s justice and his steadfast love.

God’s just anger: God will not always accuse, nor will he keep his anger forever (v.9). Martin Luther once commented, ‘Wrath is God’s strange work.’ Anger is alien to God: it is his response to our failure to honor him and give him the thanks that is his due. There was a time when there was no anger in God; equally, there will come a time when there will be nothing further to rouse his anger.

God’s steadfast love: For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him (v.11). Children sometimes ask their parents, ‘How much do you love me?’ and they open their arms saying, ‘This much, or this much?’ When David said this to God, he realized that not even the expanse of the universe can describe the vast dimensions of God’s love.

So he continues: As far as the east is from the west, so far he removes our transgressions from us (v.12).  We can’t watch the sun rise and set at the same time. We have to turn our back on one to see the other. Through the lens of the New Testament we see that through the cross of Christ, God found a way of detaching our sin from us, so he could condemn the one without condemning the other. The illustration means that when we ask God for mercy, he has to turn his back on our sin when he looks at us, because he puts us and our sin on two different horizons.

We have even more reason than David to bless the name of God, for we live on the other side of the cross that once stood on Calvary’s hill. That cross is a far, far greater measure of God’s love than the unfathomable depths of the universe about which David spoke. The arms of the cross show us the grief that tears the heart of God because of our sin. In Christ, God not only lifts us out of the pit, he lifts us from the depths of hell and raises us to new life forever.

How encouraging are the words of the second verse of Charitie Lees Smith’s 19th C hymn, Behold the throne of God above which says:

   When Satan tempts me to despair and tells me of the guilt within,

   Upward I look and see him there, Who made an end of all my sin.

   Because the sinless Savior died, my sinful soul is counted free,

   For God the just is satisfied to look on him and pardon me…

Is there any real praise of God in our hearts? It’s easy to go to church, to sing songs and hymns, and say Amen to the prayers, but to have no real personal connection with him. It’s easy to hear sermons that move us, but we’re not really listening to God because we’re more impressed with the preacher than we are with relating to God.

True blessing. Do you have a sense of God’s blessing in your life, a sense of connectedness with him that comes through knowing Jesus Christ? If you do not, then do what Jesus said: Ask, seek and knock. God promises to open our eyes to the truth.

A prayer. Lord our God, fountain of all wisdom, you know our necessities before we ask and our ignorance in asking: have compassion on our infirmities; and those things which for our unworthiness we dare not and for our blindness we cannot ask, graciously give us for the worthiness of your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

© John G. Mason

CS Lewis once observed, ‘I think we all sin by needlessly disobeying the apostolic injunction to “rejoice” as much as by anything else’.

Yet rejoicing is not only an apostolic injunction. A number of psalms in the Old Testament Psalter pulsate with exhortations to sing our praise to the Lord with joy in our hearts. Psalm 96 begins, O sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth. Sing to the Lord, bless his name; tell of his salvation from day to day.

The psalm seems to have been written for the celebration of the time, some three millennia ago, when King David brought the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem. The Ark was the sign of God’s steadfast commitment to his people. First Chronicles, chapter 16 quotes Psalm 96 almost in full.

As with any good poetry, a number of themes are tightly woven together. Two, in particular, stand out: Sing and Tell.

Sing. Three times we are exhorted to sing to the Lord. Vital, biblically-grounded faith always gives rise to joyful singing because God’s people have every good reason to rejoice. The words, the Lord, stir us to lift our gaze beyond the material world: for there is one Lord.

The great commandment Jesus quoted is in Deuteronomy chapter 6, verse 4: Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. Isaiah chapter 45, verse 5 says: I am the Lord, and there is no other; besides me there is no god… And Paul the Apostle echoes this in First Corinthians chapter 4, verse 8: we know that “no idol in the world really exists,” and that “there is no God but one.”

The world we live in is a most unusual place. The universe is not some gigantic accident, but rather the product of a creator’s genius. Indeed, when we look with open minds at the complexity and diversity of the world and universe around us, we see how true this is. In his Pensées, the 17th C French mathematician and philosopher, Blaise Pascal wrote: “If I saw nothing there which revealed a Divinity, I would come to a negative conclusion; if I saw everywhere the signs of a Creator, I would remain peacefully in faith”.

Everything that exists came into being at God’s command, be it the structure of the universe, the atmosphere that surrounds our world and enables us to live, or the proportions of land and sea. All reflect God’s perfect design.

The implications are enormous – both encouraging and frightening. Encouraging because we learn we are not alone in the universe: there is a purpose and direction to life. Frightening because all humanity is called upon to do business with this God who alone is the Lord.

But there is something else that is significant. The psalm-writer exhorts us to sing to the Lord a new song. While newcould refer to new music, the context suggests something far more significant: we are to tell of his salvation from day to day. The Lord is not just the creator he is also a merciful savior. We are to glory in, and tell of his mercies that are new every day. I wonder how many of us do this?

Personally, I find it helpful to start the day with a Bible reading, starting with a Psalm, and then prayer, as well as to conclude the day with prayer. This helps me reflect on God’s mercies each day. Furthermore, as I recognise God’s daily work in my life, I am more motivated to sing his praises, not only in church, but also, often in my mind, during the day.

Which brings us to a second important theme: Tell. Verse 3 reads: Tell the nations…

With the word tell, the direction of the psalm changes – from worship of God, to telling the nations. In fact, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible (LXX) uses the word from which we get the word evangelize.

There is an important sequence of ideas here: true worship leads to gospel announcement. If we truly worship the Lord, we will want to introduce others to him. Do we do this?

From the time of Kings David and Solomon, Jerusalem was a busy international city. In Jesus’s day the Temple included a court for Gentiles, who would have heard the songs of God’s people.

For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised, the psalm continues. The Lord is to be revered above all gods. For all the gods of the peoples are idols, but the Lord made the heavens.

The logic is clear: the majesty and glory of God are to be announced throughout the world for the simple reason that there is only one God. Significantly, the focus of exhortation shifts from God’s ancient people, the Jewish people, to the nations (verses 7-10). In the singing of this psalm, visitors in Jerusalem would overhear the exhortation to attend to Israel’s God, the Lord who not only made the heavens, but whose mercies are new each day.

Psalm 96 is so important in providing a link between worship and witness, between ‘songs to God’ and ‘speech to the nations’, between the reality of faith and gospel outreach.

The theme of gospel language develops in the Old Testament. The prophets spoke of a day when God’s anointed king would be revealed and announced to all the world. Isaiah writes: How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news (gospel), who announces (proclaims the gospel of) salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns” (52:7).

The content of the gospel is the news: “Your God reigns”. From the time of Isaiah’s prophetic words, God’s people looked for the messenger who would announce God’s King. As we now look back through the lens of the New Testament, we see that not only has the messenger come (John the Baptist), but also the king: Christ the Lord, Jesus.

The theme that there is only one God who is Lord of all, reaches its climax in the closing verses of Psalm 96: Say among the nations, “The Lord is king! The world is firmly established; it shall never be moved. He will judge the peoples with equity.” Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice; let the sea roar, and all that fills it; let the field exult, and everything in it. Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy before the Lord; for he is coming, for he is coming to judge the earth. He will judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with his truth.

Martin Luther reflected: “Christ is Himself the joy of all, The sun that warms and lights us.

By His grace He doth impart Eternal sunshine to the heart; The night of sin is ended. Hallelujah!”

A prayer. Almighty God, Father of all mercies, we your unworthy servants give humble and hearty thanks for all your goodness and loving kindness to us and to all people. We bless you for our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life; but above all for your amazing love in the redemption of the world through our Lord Jesus Christ; for the means of grace and for the hope of glory. And, we pray, give us that due sense of all your mercies, that our hearts may be truly thankful, and that we may declare your praise not only with our lips, but in our lives, by giving up ourselves to your service, and by walking before you in holiness and righteousness all our days; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit, be all honor and glory, now and forever. Amen.

© John G. Mason

King Lear, one of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies, tells the story of a king who voluntarily set aside his titles and property in favor of two of his three daughters, only to find himself reduced to poverty and homelessness because they rejected him.

“Ingratitude, thou marble-hearted fiend,” King Lear sighs. “How sharper than the serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child.”

While some parents might identify with these sentiments let me ask, how often do we express our gratitude to the LORD? He is so good to us, far beyond our imagining. Do we thank him daily for his countless mercies?

The opening lines of Psalm 95 read: O come, let us sing to the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation! Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving.

Singing is a great way to express our love for God. We sing when we are happy and there is joy in our hearts. Have you ever heard the singing of the Welsh Rugby Union supporters? They can’t stop, and their singing is enthusiastic – especially when they’re winning.

The opening lines of Psalm 95 are the words of people who know God as their creator and savior. We feel the repetition of the verbs: sing, make a joyful noise,… How different this is from times when we drift into church late, pre-occupied and apathetic.

Furthermore, Psalm 95 suggests that singing is not just a matter of joy in the LORD. We also exhort and encourage one another. And so our songs need to be strong on Bible and not insipid. Our songs are not intended simply to arouse some spiritual ecstasy: they are instruments of instruction and encouragement.

And as the psalm unfolds, we see why we should sing: For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods. In his hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are his also… (Psalm 95:3-4).

One of the distinct features of biblical Christianity is the understanding that there is a living, personal God at the heart of the universe.

Significantly, the more scientists discover, the more extraordinary and complex we find the universe to be. There are chemists and physicists who tell us what the Scriptures reveal: the universe has not come into existence by chance, but rather is the work of God’s design and purpose.

Consider the personal pronouns in verses 4 and 5: In his hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are his also. The sea is his, for he made it; for his hands formed the dry land. These are personal images.

Hands speaks of a God who is not some robotic brain behind the universe. When we plumb the depths of the cosmos, we find not so much a mathematical equation or scientific formula, but a divine personality.

All this tells us something else – God sustains and directs all things. It’s important to know this and remind one another of it, for it helps us make sense of our lives. We see that we’re not just part of a meaningless journey, going nowhere.

The New Testament gives us all the more reason to see how true this is. In his public ministry Jesus showed that he has divine authority and divine power. At a word and in a moment he healed the sick, raised the dead, and stilled a storm. The New Testament speaks of Jesus as God incarnate who holds all things in his hands.

It’s sometimes said that people who go to church leave their brains at the door. But worship of God is not a mindless activity. Songs of praise are not simply a strategy to create the right psychological atmosphere. Vital faith in the LORD always awakens joyful singing because there are sound reasons for this response of thanksgiving.

And there is another great reason for singing to the LORD. Our lives have a purpose, a goal. And that purpose and that goal are bound up with knowing this God who is our refuge. No wonder Psalm 95 insists that we make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!

But in verses 7 and 8 the Psalm brings a solemn warning: Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness …

At the very point when we might want to dance and shout, the psalm takes a solemn turn. God himself now speaks asking us if we are really listening to him! Our actions might seem worshipful but our real self remains unchanged towards God.

Meribah and Massah marked places at the beginning and end of the wilderness journey, when God’s people Israel forgot his goodness in bringing them out of slavery in Egypt. On both occasions the people doubted God’s promise and his power. When the going got tough in the desert, they faltered and bitterly complained. ‘We were better off as slaves in Egypt,’ they said.

The Letter to the Hebrews quotes Psalm 95 in chapters 3 and 4. The writer knows how easy it is to forget God’s extraordinary love and goodness. It’s true even for people who have been bought and bound to God through the perfect sacrifice offered by the Lord Jesus Christ. For it was through the obedience of Jesus that God implemented a masterstroke when he satisfied in full all his righteous requirements for the sins of the world. Through the blood of Jesus, shed on the cross, a new and perfect way into God’s presence is now open for all who repent and believe the gospel. As Hebrews observes, Christ offers much more than the temporary rest Joshua offered. Christ offers a rest that is timeless and filled with joy (Hebrews 4:8-10).

Psalm 95 exhorts us to sing to Lord with joy in our hearts. It also warns us against turning our back on the salvation he has won for us. We who live on the other side of Jesus’ death and resurrection, express our joy in him and trust his promises. Having grasped his great gift with thanksgiving, let’s not turn away.

Thanksgiving. How often do you think about God’s mercy with thanksgiving in your heart and a song of praise on your lips – not only when you go to church, but also when you rise in the morning and go to bed at night?

Prayer. God our Father, whose will is to bring all things to order and unity in our Lord Jesus Christ; grant that all the peoples of the world, now divided and torn apart by sin, may be brought together in his kingdom of love; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Raise up your great power, Lord, and come among us to save us; so that, although through our sins we are grievously hindered in running the race that is set before us, your plentiful grace and mercy may speedily help and deliver us; through the sufficiency of your Son our Lord, to whom with you and the Holy Spirit be honor and glory, now and for ever. Amen.

© John G. Mason

One of the things I love about the Bible is its earthy realism. It understands the world we live in – the good and the bad, the grief and the joys. It also understands how we feel about life’s injustices especially when we see people who mock the notion of God, enjoying success. Nothing ever seems to go wrong for them. And as well as the unfairness we often feel, there are the realities of droughts and famines, floods and fires, earthquakes and ruthless autocratic rulers. Why doesn’t God step in? It seems so out of character, if he is all-powerful and truly good.

True faith will always have questions. In fact, faith that refuses to ask questions is one that leaves itself open to the contempt of the skeptic. True faith will want to address tough questions and be willing to experience the doubts that arise.

Now it’s important to note that to have doubts is not to lack faith: doubt is not the opposite of faith. Doubt and unbelief are two very different things. Doubt is something that only a believer can experience, for you can only doubt what you believe.

Doubt. Psalm 73 is a reflection written by a man who experienced doubt. He came within a hair’s breadth of abandoning his faith in God: But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled; my steps had nearly slipped (73:2). Yet at the end of the psalm he tells us he felt closer to God than ever before: But for me it is good to be near God; I have made the Lord Godmy refuge, to tell of all your works (73:28). As the psalm unfolds we learn of his spiritual pilgrimage –  how he progressed from doubt to a surer trust in God.

One of his big questions is framed by what we might say is a theological principle – that God is good to the upright(73:1). ‘Why is it then’, he asks, ‘that many who are godless find life easy while I suffer? Where is God?’

Indeed, a tone of bitterness flows through verses 3 through 11. It’s as though he is saying, ‘Come on, let’s face it, whatever we say when we go to church, it is the self-centered, proud, deceitful and ruthless people who succeed. Healthy and wealthy, nothing seems to bring them down. No-one seems to be able to call them to account. ‘They get rewarded for their crimes with popularity’, the psalmist observes. ‘God is irrelevant’, they say in mocking tones, rejecting any thought of divine retribution. Justice is the issue troubling the poet.

Consider what triggered the writer’s crisis of faith: All in vain I have kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence.  For all day long I have been plagued and am punished every morning (73:13f). For many, injustice only becomes an issue when it touches them. In those times we ask: ‘God, why me?’ It’s here that the first person singular pronouns give us away: ‘Why should I suffer?’ ‘Why me God?’ The psalm-writer articulates it: I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked (73:15).

The solution. In verses 15 following, we discover how the poet worked through his doubts. He went to church: When… I went into the sanctuary of God… I perceived their end.

Good churches not only read the Bible, but believe it to be God’s authentic, self-revelation. And so, they teach it and as they do they put God at the center of the vision of God’s people. This is vitally important. For it is only when God is at the center of our vision that we see life as it really is. We’re like the moon – we live on borrowed light. It’s only when we turn our face towards God through his Word that we see the light. But as long as we put ‘me’ at the center of life, our vision will be distorted.

So it’s only when we learn from God’s Word that we begin to see the true light revealed by God. And when the psalmist reflected on God’s Word he began to see what happens to those who choose not to believe: They are like a dream when one awakes; on awaking you despise their phantoms (73:20). As far as the Bible is concerned, this is dreadfully real.

The idea of a final day of accounting is mocked today. But when we think about it, if there is no ultimate judgement the world is reduced to moral indifference: goodness itself has no value. Furthermore, God’s people realize that just because we can’t see the future doesn’t mean it is imaginary. God sees it, even though we don’t.

There is probably no more terrible judgment on godless men and women than the reality that one day God will ignore them forever. ‘Depart from me, I never knew you,’ Jesus will say.  What chilling words to hear from the Lord of the universe. What a terrifying nightmare to be despised by God. When the psalmist went to church and put God at the center of his vision, he understood how precarious is the prosperity of the godless. It won’t last, he realized.

But the psalm-writer also learned that despite his doubts and foolish talk, he was a child of God: Nevertheless I am continually with you; you hold my right hand.  You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me into glory (73:23). To hear God’s Word in the company of his people is a powerful grace-gift from God. It prompts us to see our doubts for what they are and opens our eyes to the riches of faith. God holds us by the hand, guides us with his counsel, and will bring us to everlasting glory.

We today have all the greater assurance of this because we live on the other side of the life and death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ. Without him we will not know life in all its fullness and joy. CS Lewis once put it this way: All your life an unattainable ecstasy has hovered just beyond the grasp of your consciousness. The day is coming when you will wake to find, beyond all hope, that you have attained it, or else, that it was within your reach and you have lost it forever.

Prayers. Almighty God, you have conquered death through your dearly beloved Son Jesus Christ and have opened to us the gate of everlasting life: grant us by your grace to set our mind on things above, so that by your continual help our whole life may be transformed; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit in everlasting glory. Amen.

Heavenly Father, the giver of all good things, fill our hearts with thankfulness, and grant that by your holy inspiration we may think those things that are good, and by your grace and guidance do them; through our Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.

© John G. Mason

Last week we reflected on the reality of the depression many people experience. Psalms 42 and 43 testify to this. The psalms are an example of the timeless wisdom and counsel that we find in the Bible. Psalms 42 and 43 are a cry from the heart.

The writer asks why he is depressed. ‘I believe’ he says, ‘Why then should I feel as I do? Why am I so inwardly disturbed? What’s happened to me?’ Three times he asks: Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? (Ps 42:5, 11; Ps 43:5).

Speaking about his feelings, the poet doesn’t do what many who are depressed do: he doesn’t try to bury his emotional distress. And certainly, he doesn’t turn to alcohol, drugs, or some other diversion. Nor does he try to pretend he’s doing well: he admits his feelings.

We find here a very helpful lesson. It takes courage to identify that we have a problem. Men especially find this difficult, for generally we don’t like to talk about their feelings or admit to what might be perceived as weakness. Both Psalms 42 and 43 imply that if we are depressed, we need to acknowledge it. We don’t have to announce it on Facebook, but it’s worth speaking with a trustworthy friend, a pastor or a physician. And there may come a time when we will want to tell a wider audience – by way of testimony.

The point is that if we are lonely, or feel guilty about something, or if we have lost someone dear to us, we need to talk about it. There’s nothing to be gained by brushing it off or burying it. Look at the poet’s response in Psalm 42:9: I say to God, my rock, “Why have you forgotten me? Why must I walk about mournfully because the enemy oppresses me?” He’s almost making an accusation: ‘God, where are you? You’re supposed to be my rock and my security. Well God, the rock has moved. You have let me down. Why?’

Now, it’s important that we ask questions like this. Not because there’s necessarily an immediate answer, but because we need to express our frustration, even despair. Indeed, there can be times when we’re depressed because we repress our anger. One psychotherapist speaks of it as ‘frozen rage’.

When we feel angry with God, we must remember that he is no stranger to emotion. He knows what it is like to be treated unjustly and to be sinned against. And he certainly knows what it is like to feel alone. We should never forget Jesus’ own cry of dereliction that he uttered from the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46).

We cannot even begin to understand the depths of aloneness Jesus experienced over the three hours as he suffered the full power of God’s justice that we justly deserve. Time would have seemed to stand still as Jesus, the eternal Son of God, suffered the full force of the horrifying darkness and separation from all that is pure and good, from God, his eternal Father, as the weight of human sin was laid on his shoulders. In our moments of despair, it is easy to forget the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. Every day we need to keep it before us.

Remember. To return to the psalms we are considering, in Psalm 42:4 we read: These things I remember, as I pour out my soul: how I went with the throng, and led them in procession to the house of God,… Recalling past blessings brought comfort to the writer in his spiritual drought. Many people find it helpful to keep what some Christians speak of as a journal of the soul. Reading it in the tough times can be a great encouragement.

Address our soul: Throughout the two psalms the theme cry is: Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? The conscious mind of the poet is speaking to his inner self. Talking to yourself is sometimes reckoned to be a sign of mental aberration. But the poet is telling us that there are times when this can be a way to climb out of the pit of despair. A great danger for someone who is depressed is self-pity. Speak to your soul’, the poet advises.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, a renowned 20th century English preacher wrote: ‘The main trouble in this whole matter of depression is that we allow our Self to talk to us instead of us talking to our Self.’ The writer’s soul has been depressing him, crushing him, so he stands up and says, ‘Soul, listen! I will speak to you: “Hope in God; I shall again praise him, my help and my God”.’

This is not the same as saying to anyone who is depressed, ‘Pull yourself together’. That kind of counsel won’t help. But, if we’re depressed, it would be helpful to say to ourselves, ‘Look to the Lord, for he is my light and my help. My hope is in him’.

Throughout these two psalms there is a movement from depression, to admission, and to self-exhortation. But there is something else: Prayer.

In Psalm 43:1 we read: Vindicate me, O God, and defend my cause against an ungodly people… And in verse 3: Send out your light and your truth; let them lead me…

The psalm-writer is confident in God’s grace at work in his life. Because of this he knows that the day will come when, again filled with joy, he will sing songs of praise to God.

Psalms 42-43 urge us to move beyond believing things about God, to sensing the Lord’s living presence in our lives – whoever we are, and whatever our situation in life.

A prayer. Almighty God, who taught the hearts of your faithful people by sending them the light of your Holy Spirit: so enable us by the same Spirit to have a right judgment in all things and always to rejoice in his holy comfort; through the merits of Christ Jesus our Savior, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Amen.

© John G. Mason

Many people these days experience depression. It is not something new and should not be lightly dismissed. Some experience it more than others. Furthermore, it is not something that only people who have no religious faith experience. Great ones of the Bible, such as Elijah, King David, Jeremiah, and Paul the Apostle, all experienced it.

A cry from the heart. Psalms 42 & 43 which open Book II of the Psalms, reveal lessons we can learn from the experiences described in them. Far from home, in exile in the north, the psalm-writer asks three times: Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you so disquieted within me? (42:5, 11; 43:5).

In the opening line of Psalm 42 the poet reveals his desire: As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God? He longs for God’s presence. There are times when we too echo his feeling – times when prayer is difficult and talk of joy and peace is meaningless.

But notice what underlies these occasions – feelings, emotions, depression. Because we are psychosomatic beings, a disturbance in our body chemistry which may be caused by external physical factors, can affect our emotional balance as well as our spiritual awareness.

We can see what the writer is doing: he is telling us that it’s important we view our feelings and experiences through the lens of the wisdom of our faith. If we have a migraine we don’t shout, ‘Alleluia’. And so, if we’re suffering depression, we’re not going to feel close to God. But that shouldn’t prevent us from asking questions. Indeed, we should understand that there’s all the difference between feeling forsaken by God and being forsaken by him.

Now, that said, depression can be a result of spiritual factors. If, for example, we are burdened with guilt about something we’ve done, we may feel God is remote. There may also be times when we experience a spiritual attack from opposing forces. However, in most instances what might be called spiritual depression is in fact a natural depression impacting a spiritually minded person. This seems to be what the writer is experiencing.

And so he records his experiences. He speaks of his spiritual isolation: My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me continually, “Where is your God?” (42:3) The verbal barbs went home. It’s easy to trust God in the comfort and security of God’s people. But now he was alone, without emotional support or personal encouragement. Situations like this can depress us for we are social creatures.

Furthermore, he reveals his physical isolation: These things I remember, as I pour out my soul: how I went with the throng, and led them in procession to the house of God, with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving, a multitude keeping festival.

A high point of the writer’s life had been religious festivals. He is homesick as he remembers them. Anyone who has moved to a new city or a new country knows how real this can be. It’s enough to make anyone depressed.

But again, his experience was not necessarily spiritual depression. Yes, he felt isolated from God, but that didn’t mean there was an underlying spiritual cause. His issue wasn’t sin or lack of faith. It was the consequence of his situation.

His depression so disturbed him that he burst into uncontrollable tears: My tears have been my food day and night,..(42:3) Three times he also tells us that he was downcast. He felt flat. He felt no spark of enthusiasm or energy. Depressed people often feel exhausted.

He also says three times that he is disturbed: ‘Why are you so disturbed within me, o my soul?’ We sense his anxious sighs and groans. And in verse 7 he tells us that he feels overwhelmed: Deep calls to deep at the thunder of your waterfalls (or, cataracts); all your waves and your billows have gone over me.

Socially and physically alone, the writer was emotionally distraught. He was flat emotionally, anxious, and overwhelmed. Which led to something else: spiritual rejection. In verse 9 he says: I say to God, my rock, “Why have you forgotten me? Why must I walk about mournfully because the enemy oppresses me?” Torn with a sense of loss, he is like someone grieving the loss of a loved one. He feels spiritually bereft, devastated, and heartbroken.

But this writer is a believer. The dominant person in his life is God. We recall his opening line: As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God. The poet feels spiritually depressed, not because he was spiritually negligent but because of his situation as one of God’s people. ‘I believe’ he is saying, ‘Why should I feel like I do? Why am I so inwardly disturbed? What’s happened to me? What’s happened to my faith?’

We may think this man is spiritually weak but there’s no hint of this in the psalm. In fact, the way he wrestles with his depression testifies to the reality of his faith and to his perseverance.

Psalms 42 and 43 are most important for they provide lessons for us when we are in the depths of despair. What was the writer’s response? We’ll consider this next Wednesday.

A prayer. Almighty God, we commend to your fatherly goodness all who are in any way afflicted or distressed, especially those who are known to us. May it please you to comfort and relieve them according to their needs, giving them patience in their sufferings, and a happy issue out of all their afflictions. All this we ask for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

© John G. Mason

Twenty-four years ago Judith and I were living three short blocks south of the Twin Towers in Downtown Manhattan. We had awakened on Tuesday morning, September 11 to clear blue skies and the sparkling waters of New York Harbor. But it was not to last.

We felt the shock in our building when the first tower was hit from the north. We heard the scream of the second jet flying low overhead and what sounded like a sonic boom when the south tower was hit. We experienced the shaking of our apartment building, similar to that of an earthquake, and the midnight darkness when the first tower collapsed. We saw the dust, the ash and the paper on the streets and felt the eerie silence when we were later able to leave our building. Lower Manhattan was like a moonscape. A great evil occurred that day.

Twenty-four years on it is easy to put aside the hideous, evil acts that cut short the lives of people going about their daily affairs. It’s easy to forget that commercial airliners were used as missiles to crash into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. A further flight intended for more destruction was thwarted by the selfless heroic efforts of passengers. People on that flight prayed the Lord’s Prayer as the plane crashed into a field in Pennsylvania. Over three thousand men and women died that day.

In his address to the nation that evening, George W. Bush, then President, called for prayers for all who had lost loved ones. He continued: And I pray they will be comforted by a power greater than any of us, spoken through the ages in Psalm 23: “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me.”

In the Wall Street Bible talks I was giving at the time, I spoke on Psalm 46 which begins: God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.

Creation in turmoil. It can never be said that the Bible knows nothing about catastrophic events – and not least human evil and its devastating effects on this world. Indeed, the Psalm introduces a theme we overlook today – namely, the ultimate dissolution of the present world order by its Creator. God continues his work even in the midst of the chaos. God’s supremacy and presence with his people is never thwarted. He alone is our security and strength.

The larger biblical epic records the intrusion of evil into God’s good creation in Genesis chapter 3. God didn’t create evil, but because he didn’t make us robots, he allowed it. However, as the biblical narrative unfolds, we become aware of the reality and the depth of wickedness.

As a side note, if we insist we’re here by chance and are nothing but atoms in an ordered cohesion bumping around in time and space, evil and suffering have no meaning for there is no transcendental moral compass.

The opening lines of Psalm 46 speak of the unchanging God who is our refuge and strength. In him alone we find a secure shelter and the power within to address any situation. Indeed, verses 2 and 3 exhort us not to fear, even if the world around us is undone, for God remains supreme over every facet of his creation – the earth, the mountains, and the seas.

Humanity in turmoil. Psalm 46 moves from the upheaval of the material world to human turmoil. There is a river, whose streams make glad the city of God….God is the midst of the city; it will not be moved; God will help it when the morning dawns.

Derek Kidner comments that ‘the city of God is one of the great themes of the Old Testament … God’s choice of Zion, or Jerusalem, had been as striking as his choice of David, and the wonder of it keeps breaking through’ (Kidner, Psalms, Vol.1, p.175). We also find glimpses anticipating the New Testament vision of the heavenly Jerusalem as the community of God’s people rather than as a place (Ps.48:2).

Verse 6 speaks of the instability of evil and human tumult: The nations are in uproar, the kingdoms totter… However, God has the last word for when he utters his voice, the earth melts. Verse 7 is so reassuring: The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.

The Lord of hosts points to the mighty armies of heaven to which Jesus alluded when he was arrested (Matthew 26:53). Refuge, a different to word to verse 1, speaks of an ‘inaccessible height’ which the New English Bible translates as our high stronghold.

Be still! Verses 8 and 9 are an invitation to catch the vision of God’s ultimate intention – to make wars to cease to the end of the earth. It is a picture of the perfect peace that will follow on the other side of God’s judgement – the accounting that precedes the perfect righteousness of the new heaven and the new earth (2 Peter 3:12f).

The command “Be still” is not so much a word of comfort to God’s people under duress but a command to every nation. Jesus’s word to the turbulent winds and waters, “Peace. Be still” display the power of God’s Word. Mind-bending though the idea is, at God’s command the nations will be called to order, confronted by God’s supreme and glorious power: “Know that I am God! I will be exalted among the nations … and in the earth” (46:10).

In the closing words, the confidence in God in verse 1 returns with greater power: The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge – our high stronghold! The death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ confirm the truth and trustworthiness of these words.

In the immediate aftermath of 9/11 twenty-four years ago, churches were filled as many looked for comfort and hope. Some turned to the risen Lord Jesus Christ for the first time.

As we reflect on these events twenty-four years on, will you join with me in praying for the nations, especially that God might open blind eyes and unstop deaf ears, turning hard hearts towards their true home in Christ?

It’s worth noting the words of Blaise Pascal, the 17th C French mathematician, physicist and philosopher: “Men and women despise religion. They hate it and are afraid it may be true. The cure for this is just to show that religion is not contrary to reason, but worthy of reverence and respect. Next make it attractive, make good people wish it were true, and then show them that it is”.

Let me also encourage you to purchase copies of my book, The Jesus Story: Seven Signs – one to refresh your own faith in Christ as well as copies to pass on to others. Use the link in the banner below if you are in the US. If you are outside the US copies can be purchased through Amazon.

Prayer. We commend to your fatherly care, merciful God, all those who in this passing world are in any kind of trouble, sorrow, sickness, anxiety or need, especially we pray for…  Give them patience and confidence in your goodness, and in your mercy provide their every need. Father, hear our prayer, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

We praise your name for all your servants in whose life and death Christ has been honored. Grant that, encouraged by the good examples of their lives, we may run the race that is set before us, and with them share the fullness of joy at your right hand; through Christ who is the pioneer and perfecter of faith.  Amen.

© John G. Mason