First homily in the Heaven Scent series.
Presented to Swift Current Corps 28 November 2010
By Captain Michael Ramsay
Today is the first Sunday of Advent and in Advent we have the Advent wreath, of course. I don’t know if you know some of the significance of the Advent wreath. One key point is that it is traditionally made from evergreens. I thought the idea of forever green is very appropriate for today. I think that the province at large this year is really getting into the Advent celebrations with the whole ever-green idea. I’ve heard of whole towns painted green this Sunday and look at the number of people wearing green here today; building up to Advent, I have even heard that great ever-green hymn a lot recently: ‘Green is the colour….’ We’ll talk a little more about the evergreen and Advent, a little less tongue in cheek, in a little bit.
First we will talk specifically about Psalm 122, a psalm of David. Psalm 122 is the psalm associated with the first week of advent this year and this is the Psalm that we will be looking at today. Psalm 122:1 records- I rejoiced with those who said to me, “Let us go up to the house of the LORD.”
Let us go up to the house of the LORD: It is always exciting when people wish to go up to the house of the LORD, to go to church, to come to the corps - either new friends from out-of-town visiting with their family at Christmastime or when we have visitors from other churches to do Advent Reader Exchanges and that sort of thing. It is good too when people haven’t been in church for a while decide to come to the house of the Lord again and it is nice too to see people who are just showing up in the morning of the Grey Cup rematch to put in a request: it is good to see them and I am sure many people in the province have that same request. (In staff meeting this week we actually discussed whether or not it was theologically appropriate to pray for the Riders.) It is even just good from week to week when we come here to the house of the Lord, to church (the corps) and have a chance to see our long-term or old friends.[1] Especially great is when people come to the house of the LORD to give their lives to the LORD for the first time. Can anything be better than that? [2] No, so, Let us all go up to the house of the LORD whenever we can. It’s always great to be in the LORD’s house!
Now we know that in the New Testament when they talk about the Lord’s house, we know when we talk about the Church, the Church we are referring to is not a building but rather it’s another name for Christians. We Christians are the Church (we were not even called Christians until at Antioch, Acts 11:26). In the New Testament the church is the believers, not a building. We know this but we also know that in the common vernacular of today, the house of the Lord is simply a euphemism, a synonym, or just another name for the church building: any cathedral, temple, citadel, any church building in this day and age is known as God’s house. But this psalm that we are looking at today was not written in this day and age nor was it written in the New Testament era, it was written well before then by King David, the second king of Israel and he wrote Psalm 122 about 3000 years ago.
Today when we hear the ‘house of the Lord’ we often think of the church building but in the time that David wrote this psalm, does anyone know what was meant by the ‘House of the LORD’? What was by the ‘House of the LORD’ in David’s time? (Home of the Ark of the Covenant; cf. Numbers 7:89; 1 Samuel 4:4; cf. also Exodus 25-27, 40:21; Deuteronomy 10:8; 1 Kings 8; 1 Chronicles 22:19, 28:2). Remember who built the Temple of the LORD? Solomon: Solomon was David’s successor; he was made king after his father David, just before King David died. Solomon’s Temple hadn’t been built yet when this psalm was written. The temple hadn’t been built when David wrote this psalm; so what is David talking about when he writes in the opening line of this psalm, “Let us go to the house of the LORD” if the Temple of the LORD had not been built yet? In this case the house of the LORD probably refers to the whole city of Jerusalem. [3]
We know about the ancient city of Jerusalem don’t we? It is the city that David made his capital and he moved the Ark of the Covenant to it - after taking the city from its original inhabitants (2 Samuel 5:5-6, 6:1; 1 Chronicles 13, 15). I’ve got a couple of questions for you about Jerusalem and this ‘House of the LORD’ that we are talking about today. These may be a little bit difficult but let’s see how we do on this the first Sunday of Advent?
1) The people of Judah/Israel were not the original inhabitants of Jerusalem, who were? The Jebusites (cf. Joshua 15:63, Judges 1:21)
2) In Genesis, Jerusalem is often referred to by another name, do you know what that name is? Salem (Genesis 14, Psalm 76, Hebrews 7). This is not to be confused with that famous place in the United States where they had those violent witch-hunts. It is not the same place. Salem Mass. was ironically named after Jerusalem. Jerusalem is also called Jebus elsewhere in the Old Testament (Judges 19:10-11, 1 Chronicles 11:4).
3) Who is the first king of Salem / Jerusalem mentioned in the Bible, in Genesis 14 (also in Hebrews 7) at the time of Abraham – Abraham actually gives his tithe to this Canaanite priest-king, who is that King of Jerusalem? Jesus is referred to as a High Priest in the order of this fellow (Melchizedek). Adoni-Zedek is also mentioned as a king of Jerusalem in Judges 10. He isn’t remembered quite as fondly…
4) Who designated Jerusalem as the capital of Judah and Israel? (David; 2 Samuel 5:5-6)
5) What Holy item did King David have brought to Jerusalem after he made Jerusalem the capital of the United Kingdom of Judah and Israel? (The Ark of the Covenant; 2 Samuel 6, 15; 1 Chronicles 13, 15)
6) What was the top of this Ark of the Covenant called? (The Mercy Seat Atonement Cover) Exodus 26:25 in the AV says, “And there I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim which are upon the ark of the testimony, of all things which I will give thee in commandment unto the children of Israel” (cf. also Numbers 7:89; 1 Samuel 4:4). The mercy seat is where God will meet them and where He will commune with them. Now, of course, we in The Salvation Army have a Mercy Seat whose named is derived from the Mercy Seat on the Ark. It is this pew up front here and at anytime if someone feels like approaching God they are more than welcome to use our mercy seat for that very purpose: like the Mercy Seat on the Ark, it is meant to be a place where we can commune with God.
Now, the whole city of Jerusalem is set apart as holy during the time of the psalm that we are looking at today because the Mercy Seat on this Ark of the Covenant – where one meets God - is here. Charles Spurgeon says, “It was most natural that they should sing of Jerusalem itself, and invoke peace and prosperity upon the Holy City, for it was the centre of their worship, and the place where the Lord revealed himself above the mercy seat.”[4] The Ark of the Covenant and its Mercy Seat, where we can meet God, is kept in the House of the LORD (2 Samuel 7; 1 Chronicles 17, 22:19; 2 Chronicles 5-6; cf. also Exodus 25-27, 40:21; Deuteronomy 10:8; 1 Kings 8; 1 Chronicles 22:19, 28:2). The House of the LORD then, in essence, simply refers to where the LORD is. We know that the LORD is not contained by walls (as did most people in Old Testament times). In the time of David’s writing this psalm, Psalm 122, people would expect to see God at the Mercy Seat on the Ark of the Covenant which was in the Holy City of Jerusalem and today when we come here to the building that contains the church (remember that the church is us Christians, the bride of Christ), we should also come here expecting to see God. And Christmas is especially a time when we celebrate the coming of Jesus, Immanuel, who is ‘God with us’.
Today, we are here in the house of God surrounded by the fragrant aroma of the evergreens of Advent: these evergreens we remember what they represent, right? These evergreens and Christmas intentionally and officially represent eternal life. We are surrounded by these evergreens of everlasting life and we are surrounded here by Immanuel who is God-with-us. And this brings us to the other piece that I want us to look at today.
Susan has decided that this advent as well as going through the psalms we are going to link each Sunday to a different smell, a different aroma. The aroma that we are concentrating on this week is that of the evergreen and the evergreen –like we just said - stands for everlasting life! The Advent wreath, which we have before us today, is an old Germanic tradition and it is a circle of evergreens. The circle itself is a symbol of eternity and a reminder that God has neither a beginning nor an end. The evergreen wreath is a symbol of eternal life and it is a reminder to us that God is immutable and unchangeable.[5]
This is very important when we are considering Psalm 122 today here in the house of God. We spoke earlier about Psalm 122:1 that records “I rejoiced with those who said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the LORD.’” We also spoke about how much we can rejoice whenever we see people coming here to the Lord’s house.[6] It is always exciting to see the number of people here and this year as a congregation we pledged to concentrate on each of us trying to invite one friend at least to join us here on a regular basis. That way by the time a year is up, we should have double our numbers. And even more important than just coming to the church and inviting our friends into the church, is when we invite people here in the spirit of the evergreen, which is the spirit of eternal life. As exciting as it is to see all of us here, how much more exciting it is when people come up to the house of the Lord, seeking eternal life (cf. TSA doc's 6,7,10,11).
Now, I don’t want to embarrass anyone – so I won’t mention any names until they tell you – just this week someone came into the church and told me that their daughter was coming up to the church, the house of the LORD, to give their life to the LORD. She came here and Susan led her in a prayer of repentance and joined here in the expectation or acknowledgement, as the case may be, of the Holy Spirit’s regeneration. In the spirit of the evergreen, she grasped the wreath of eternal life. Can there be anything better than that? In that spirit, I think we can all say with King David, “I rejoiced with those who said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the LORD.’” And indeed when we are wearing our green today at our Grey Cup parties and around town, let us not forget this time of year, the true symbolism of the evergreen and let us all be reminded of the joys of eternal life with Jesus Christ our Lord.
Let us pray.
http://www.sheepspeak.com/
----
[1] Willem A. VanGemeren, The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Pradis CD-ROM:Psalms/Exposition of Psalms/BOOK V: Psalms 107-150/Psalm 122: May There Be Peace in Zion!/I. The Pilgrim's Joy (122:1-2), Book Version: 4.0.2: The choice of verbs is significant, as the psalmist is reflecting on the many times that he has heard the call to go to the house of the Lord. Verse 1 may well be translated as "I rejoice whenever they say to me." At this point he is standing in Jerusalem and rejoicing—with the thousands of other pilgrims—that he has arrived at the goal of his pilgrimage. His feet are standing in Jerusalem!”
[2] Derek Kidner, Psalms 73-150: An Introduction and Commentary. Downers Grove, IL : InterVarsity Press, 1975 (Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries 16), S. 469: “The Christian’s equivalent to this progress and arrival is finely expressed in the doxology of Jude 24, offered to ‘him who is able to keep you from falling’ (cf. Ps. 121) ‘and to present you without blemish before the presence of his glory with rejoicing’ (cf. Ps. 122).”
[3] Willem A. VanGemeren, The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Pradis CD-ROM:Psalms/Exposition of Psalms/BOOK V: Psalms 107-150/Psalm 122: May There Be Peace in Zion!/I. The Pilgrim's Joy (122:1-2), Book Version: 4.0.2.
[4] Charles H. Spurgeon, ‘The Treasury of David Vol. 2’, Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, page (Overview): available on-line at http://www.biblestudytools.com/commentaries/treasury-of-david/psalms-122-1.html
[5]Cf. ‘Advent Wreath — Background and How To Make Your Own Wreath’ Catholic Culture.org, http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/liturgicalyear/activities/view.cfm?id=954
[6] cf. for a discussion of this, Charles H. Spurgeon, ‘The Treasury of David Vol. 2’, Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers: available on-line at www.biblestudytools.com/commentaries/treasury-of-david/psalms-122-1.html
Friday, November 26, 2010
Friday, November 12, 2010
Sally’s Story: A Remembrance Day Address (Psalm 71:1-2)
By Captain Michael Ramsay. Presented to the Premier of Saskatchewan, the Mayor of Swift Current, our Federal MP, Royal Canadian Legion Branch #56 and their guests on 11 November 2010 and to The Swift Current Corps 13 November 2010 and Alberni Valley Ministries 10 November 2019.[1]
On November 11th we remember our friends and families who served in the World Wars, Korea, peacekeeping missions and subsequent conflicts in the 20th and 21st centuries. My own grandfather returned home to Saskatchewan from California, where he was working when the Second World War broke out, to join the Canadian Army. He eagerly grabbed some friends from Cut Knife and they all signed up for our armed forces. Of the men that enlisted that day with my grandfather, I believe, only he lived to see the end of the war. John 15:17, in the Bible, records: ‘Greater love has no man than to lay down his life for his friends’
The Salvation Army was also present in both these wars – actually in the trenches -offering material and emotional support and the love of God to the soldiers. I am humbled and honoured to share with you today some of what the Lord has done through the Canadian Salvation Army in the conflicts of 20th Century.
During both World Wars and throughout the Cold War, The Salvation Army was very active. We provided military personnel with basic comforts and helped maintain morale by establishing leave centres for rest and recreation providing a degree of civility amidst the loneliness and dehumanizing conditions of war. Psalm 71:1 says, “In you, O LORD, have I taken my refuge…” and this is how we were able to be used by God, like Psalm 71:2 says, to rescue and deliver others. As an Officer in The Salvation Army, I am very thankful for that opportunity we have had to serve.
In World War I, The Canadian Salvation Army ran hundreds of well-equipped huts, canteens, and rest facilities, as well as hostels in Britain, France and Belgium. At these hostels our war-weary troops could bathe, do laundry, eat decent food, and prepare themselves physically, mentally, and spiritually for the always-difficult return to the trenches. And when they returned to those trenches on the front lines they were met with more Salvation Army Officers providing refreshments and amenities. Canadian soldier Will Bird wrote: “Every front-line soldier of World War I knew that his true friend was the man in The Salvation Army canteen.”
It is at this time in WWI that we actually got our nickname: ‘Sally Ann’. The troops coined this affectionate nickname ‘Sally Ann' to describe The Salvation Army and also our Red Shield logo that we all know – it began as the symbol of our First World War relief efforts. Also – Doughnuts: did you know that doughnuts were first introduced to North America through Salvation Army canteens. Next time you go through the Timmy’s Drive Thru think of a veteran and our Wartime service to God through them. Psalm 71:1 says, “In you, O LORD, have I taken my refuge…” and this is how we were able to be used by God, like Psalm 71:2 says, to rescue and deliver others. As an Officer in The Salvation Army, I am very thankful for that opportunity we have had to serve.
In World War I, on the home front, in Canada, The Salvation Army Home League sent tens of thousands of comfort packages containing socks, underwear, Christmas presents, and other items directly to the Salvation Army chaplains for distribution to Canadian troops right in the trenches. Salvationists also visited the homes of deceased soldiers in Canada regularly to look into the welfare of their dependants and comfort many bereaved families.
The Salvation Army in 1918 organized our first ever nation-wide appeal for funds – and this was to assist returning soldiers in the often-disorienting days following their discharge. From this, we raised enough money to open hostels across Canada, each offering a quiet retreat for soldiers on their way home or awaiting demobilization. Psalm 71:1 says, “In you, O LORD, have I taken my refuge…” and this is why we were able to be used by God, like Psalm 71:2 says, to rescue and deliver others. As an Officer in The Salvation Army, I am very thankful for that opportunity we have had to serve.
Now when war broke out again in September 1939, we were there. Our responsibilities again included showing movies, establishing canteens, organizing recreational activities such as concerts and sporting events, providing reading material and stationery. At our leave centres in London, soldiers could obtain a bed, a breakfast, and a bath. We comforted the wounded and even helped bury the dead. In short, we did whatever was necessary to help maintain military morale. The Salvation Army instructed its supervisors to “care for the body, mind and soul of every [service person] irrespective of creed or personality.” This is still our mandate today. As historian Scott Young has written, the Salvation Army “provided the reassuring link between the fighting man and his world of peace and kindness and sanity.”
During Canadian training exercises in Britain, Sally Ann's mobile canteens supplied tired men with coffee, donuts, chocolates, and even cigarettes free of charge. The Salvation Army rest camp for the Royal Canadian Navy in Northern Ireland brought with it one very significant consequence: a local judge noted that following the establishment of our facility that the number of Canadian sailors appearing before the courts had dropped by 50%! Psalm 71:1 says, “In you, O LORD, have I taken my refuge…” and this is why we were able to be used by God, like Psalm 71:2 says, to rescue and deliver others. As an Officer in The Salvation Army, I am very thankful for that opportunity we have had to serve.
In July 1943, when Canadian troops participated in the Allied invasion of Sicily, The Sally Ann was there. We helped alleviate Canadians’ stressful experience of sustained combat. A number of Salvation Army personnel landed immediately after the initial assault.
When, in early September, the Allies invaded the Italian mainland, Sally Ann again quickly followed, establishing a Red Shield Club, a hostel, and canteens. And as more Canadian forces arrived in Italy, more Salvation Army supervisors came with them. In June 1944 came the invasion of Normandy.
Within days of D-Day, The Salvation Army was already set up and at work: we spread heavy tarps over the holed roofs and shattered walls of damaged buildings, proclaimed these sites ‘movie theatres', and welcomed hundreds of exhausted Canadian soldiers in need of a laugh or distraction. The Salvation Army then set up Rec. Centres, one by one in the larger cities, as the Allies liberated them. Salvation Army personnel were attached directly to many units.
During this push for the liberation of Europe each Salvation Army Officer was equipped with a large truck that carried a portable generator, movie projector, turntable, radio, sports equipment, games, and canteen supplies, etc.
In all, The Salvation Army’s Second World War relief effort in Canada and overseas provided Canadians with hundreds of millions of sheets of writing paper and envelopes, nearly 40 million hot beverages from mobile canteens, and about 35 million meals. Almost 70 million people attended Salvation Army films and concerts. The last Salvationist active in the War did not return home until December 1946. In an official letter of thanks following the end of the War in Europe, General Harry Crerar, former commander of the First Canadian Army, wrote: “It would be easier to forget one's name than fail to remember the times without number when the Salvation Army was, in truth, our comforter and friend.”
With the onset of the Cold War, The Salvation Army continued its role as friend to Canada’s military opening many hostels, snack bars, and Rec. Centres for Canadians stationed in Germany with NATO forces. The Salvation Army mobile canteens followed Canadian troops on NATO manoeuvres and served refreshments in the field throughout the Cold War. The Salvation Army also helped incoming military families adjust to their new lives overseas. Many experienced culture shock and marital problems: we assisted with drop-in centres and counselling services. We served alongside our troops throughout the Cold War. Psalm 71:1 says, “In you, O LORD, have I taken my refuge…” and this is how we were able to be used by God, like Psalm 71:2 says, to rescue and deliver others. As an Officer in The Salvation Army, I am very thankful for that opportunity we have had to serve.
During the deployment of Canadian forces to the Persian Gulf, The Salvation Army sent ‘sunshine bags' of small gifts and comforts to each of the several thousand Canadians serving in that war zone.
When Ottawa later announced that Canadian troops in Europe would be coming home. The Salvation Army stayed with them until the very end. Brigadier-General C.D. Thibeault, Commander, Canadian Forces Europe, wrote "for us, the Salvation Army symbol has always stood for a little piece of Canada and a place of peace."
For more than a century now – we have been active since the Boer War - The Salvation Army has been allowed to provide a small ‘home away from home’ for Canada’s military personnel. Psalm 71:1 says, “In you, O LORD, have I taken my refuge…” and this is how we were able to be used by God, like Psalm 71:2 says, to rescue and deliver others. As an Officer in The Salvation Army, I am very thankful for that opportunity we have had to serve. All of our refuge and strength –or course – comes through Jesus Christ who lived, died, and rose again so that we all may live and live life abundantly. I pray that each one of us will continue to seek our refuge in the Lord and that He may use each all to offer His refuge to others in every aspect of our lives. If you have never dedicated your life to serving God and others, there really is no better time to turn to God for His protection and refuge than today.
Let us pray: Lord, Thank you for all that you have done in the lives of our military personnel and our veterans. Thank you so much for the opportunity The Salvation Army has had to serve you through serving them while they served for us. Thank you Lord that as you have already provided for our salvation between the cross and the empty tomb, you are indeed our refuge and strength and that as we turn to you, you will be our shelter in times of need. We pray this in Jesus’ name, Amen.
www.sheepspeak.com
---
[1] This is the revised text for Sunday 13 November 2010. The original text of the speech to the Legion on11 November 2010 is on-line at http://renewnetwork.blogspot.com/2010_11_01_archive.html#4283455580704371948 This address was compiled with files from Dr. Serge Durflinger, "A Touch Of Home: The War Services of the Salvation Army Dispatches: Backgrounders in Canadian Military History". Available on-line at http://www.civilization.ca/cwm/explore/military-history/dispatches/a-touch-of-home-the-war-services-of-the-salvation-army
On November 11th we remember our friends and families who served in the World Wars, Korea, peacekeeping missions and subsequent conflicts in the 20th and 21st centuries. My own grandfather returned home to Saskatchewan from California, where he was working when the Second World War broke out, to join the Canadian Army. He eagerly grabbed some friends from Cut Knife and they all signed up for our armed forces. Of the men that enlisted that day with my grandfather, I believe, only he lived to see the end of the war. John 15:17, in the Bible, records: ‘Greater love has no man than to lay down his life for his friends’
The Salvation Army was also present in both these wars – actually in the trenches -offering material and emotional support and the love of God to the soldiers. I am humbled and honoured to share with you today some of what the Lord has done through the Canadian Salvation Army in the conflicts of 20th Century.
During both World Wars and throughout the Cold War, The Salvation Army was very active. We provided military personnel with basic comforts and helped maintain morale by establishing leave centres for rest and recreation providing a degree of civility amidst the loneliness and dehumanizing conditions of war. Psalm 71:1 says, “In you, O LORD, have I taken my refuge…” and this is how we were able to be used by God, like Psalm 71:2 says, to rescue and deliver others. As an Officer in The Salvation Army, I am very thankful for that opportunity we have had to serve.
In World War I, The Canadian Salvation Army ran hundreds of well-equipped huts, canteens, and rest facilities, as well as hostels in Britain, France and Belgium. At these hostels our war-weary troops could bathe, do laundry, eat decent food, and prepare themselves physically, mentally, and spiritually for the always-difficult return to the trenches. And when they returned to those trenches on the front lines they were met with more Salvation Army Officers providing refreshments and amenities. Canadian soldier Will Bird wrote: “Every front-line soldier of World War I knew that his true friend was the man in The Salvation Army canteen.”
It is at this time in WWI that we actually got our nickname: ‘Sally Ann’. The troops coined this affectionate nickname ‘Sally Ann' to describe The Salvation Army and also our Red Shield logo that we all know – it began as the symbol of our First World War relief efforts. Also – Doughnuts: did you know that doughnuts were first introduced to North America through Salvation Army canteens. Next time you go through the Timmy’s Drive Thru think of a veteran and our Wartime service to God through them. Psalm 71:1 says, “In you, O LORD, have I taken my refuge…” and this is how we were able to be used by God, like Psalm 71:2 says, to rescue and deliver others. As an Officer in The Salvation Army, I am very thankful for that opportunity we have had to serve.
In World War I, on the home front, in Canada, The Salvation Army Home League sent tens of thousands of comfort packages containing socks, underwear, Christmas presents, and other items directly to the Salvation Army chaplains for distribution to Canadian troops right in the trenches. Salvationists also visited the homes of deceased soldiers in Canada regularly to look into the welfare of their dependants and comfort many bereaved families.
The Salvation Army in 1918 organized our first ever nation-wide appeal for funds – and this was to assist returning soldiers in the often-disorienting days following their discharge. From this, we raised enough money to open hostels across Canada, each offering a quiet retreat for soldiers on their way home or awaiting demobilization. Psalm 71:1 says, “In you, O LORD, have I taken my refuge…” and this is why we were able to be used by God, like Psalm 71:2 says, to rescue and deliver others. As an Officer in The Salvation Army, I am very thankful for that opportunity we have had to serve.
Now when war broke out again in September 1939, we were there. Our responsibilities again included showing movies, establishing canteens, organizing recreational activities such as concerts and sporting events, providing reading material and stationery. At our leave centres in London, soldiers could obtain a bed, a breakfast, and a bath. We comforted the wounded and even helped bury the dead. In short, we did whatever was necessary to help maintain military morale. The Salvation Army instructed its supervisors to “care for the body, mind and soul of every [service person] irrespective of creed or personality.” This is still our mandate today. As historian Scott Young has written, the Salvation Army “provided the reassuring link between the fighting man and his world of peace and kindness and sanity.”
During Canadian training exercises in Britain, Sally Ann's mobile canteens supplied tired men with coffee, donuts, chocolates, and even cigarettes free of charge. The Salvation Army rest camp for the Royal Canadian Navy in Northern Ireland brought with it one very significant consequence: a local judge noted that following the establishment of our facility that the number of Canadian sailors appearing before the courts had dropped by 50%! Psalm 71:1 says, “In you, O LORD, have I taken my refuge…” and this is why we were able to be used by God, like Psalm 71:2 says, to rescue and deliver others. As an Officer in The Salvation Army, I am very thankful for that opportunity we have had to serve.
In July 1943, when Canadian troops participated in the Allied invasion of Sicily, The Sally Ann was there. We helped alleviate Canadians’ stressful experience of sustained combat. A number of Salvation Army personnel landed immediately after the initial assault.
When, in early September, the Allies invaded the Italian mainland, Sally Ann again quickly followed, establishing a Red Shield Club, a hostel, and canteens. And as more Canadian forces arrived in Italy, more Salvation Army supervisors came with them. In June 1944 came the invasion of Normandy.
Within days of D-Day, The Salvation Army was already set up and at work: we spread heavy tarps over the holed roofs and shattered walls of damaged buildings, proclaimed these sites ‘movie theatres', and welcomed hundreds of exhausted Canadian soldiers in need of a laugh or distraction. The Salvation Army then set up Rec. Centres, one by one in the larger cities, as the Allies liberated them. Salvation Army personnel were attached directly to many units.
During this push for the liberation of Europe each Salvation Army Officer was equipped with a large truck that carried a portable generator, movie projector, turntable, radio, sports equipment, games, and canteen supplies, etc.
In all, The Salvation Army’s Second World War relief effort in Canada and overseas provided Canadians with hundreds of millions of sheets of writing paper and envelopes, nearly 40 million hot beverages from mobile canteens, and about 35 million meals. Almost 70 million people attended Salvation Army films and concerts. The last Salvationist active in the War did not return home until December 1946. In an official letter of thanks following the end of the War in Europe, General Harry Crerar, former commander of the First Canadian Army, wrote: “It would be easier to forget one's name than fail to remember the times without number when the Salvation Army was, in truth, our comforter and friend.”
With the onset of the Cold War, The Salvation Army continued its role as friend to Canada’s military opening many hostels, snack bars, and Rec. Centres for Canadians stationed in Germany with NATO forces. The Salvation Army mobile canteens followed Canadian troops on NATO manoeuvres and served refreshments in the field throughout the Cold War. The Salvation Army also helped incoming military families adjust to their new lives overseas. Many experienced culture shock and marital problems: we assisted with drop-in centres and counselling services. We served alongside our troops throughout the Cold War. Psalm 71:1 says, “In you, O LORD, have I taken my refuge…” and this is how we were able to be used by God, like Psalm 71:2 says, to rescue and deliver others. As an Officer in The Salvation Army, I am very thankful for that opportunity we have had to serve.
During the deployment of Canadian forces to the Persian Gulf, The Salvation Army sent ‘sunshine bags' of small gifts and comforts to each of the several thousand Canadians serving in that war zone.
When Ottawa later announced that Canadian troops in Europe would be coming home. The Salvation Army stayed with them until the very end. Brigadier-General C.D. Thibeault, Commander, Canadian Forces Europe, wrote "for us, the Salvation Army symbol has always stood for a little piece of Canada and a place of peace."
For more than a century now – we have been active since the Boer War - The Salvation Army has been allowed to provide a small ‘home away from home’ for Canada’s military personnel. Psalm 71:1 says, “In you, O LORD, have I taken my refuge…” and this is how we were able to be used by God, like Psalm 71:2 says, to rescue and deliver others. As an Officer in The Salvation Army, I am very thankful for that opportunity we have had to serve. All of our refuge and strength –or course – comes through Jesus Christ who lived, died, and rose again so that we all may live and live life abundantly. I pray that each one of us will continue to seek our refuge in the Lord and that He may use each all to offer His refuge to others in every aspect of our lives. If you have never dedicated your life to serving God and others, there really is no better time to turn to God for His protection and refuge than today.
Let us pray: Lord, Thank you for all that you have done in the lives of our military personnel and our veterans. Thank you so much for the opportunity The Salvation Army has had to serve you through serving them while they served for us. Thank you Lord that as you have already provided for our salvation between the cross and the empty tomb, you are indeed our refuge and strength and that as we turn to you, you will be our shelter in times of need. We pray this in Jesus’ name, Amen.
www.sheepspeak.com
---
[1] This is the revised text for Sunday 13 November 2010. The original text of the speech to the Legion on11 November 2010 is on-line at http://renewnetwork.blogspot.com/2010_11_01_archive.html#4283455580704371948 This address was compiled with files from Dr. Serge Durflinger, "A Touch Of Home: The War Services of the Salvation Army Dispatches: Backgrounders in Canadian Military History". Available on-line at http://www.civilization.ca/cwm/explore/military-history/dispatches/a-touch-of-home-the-war-services-of-the-salvation-army
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Psalm 1:1-2:Which one of these things is not like the other things?
Presented to the Swift Current Corps 07 November 2010
By Captain Michael Ramsay
Which one of these things is not like the other things?
- A banana, a lemon, a yellow crayon, a black shoe
- Pen, pencil, ruler, a pencil crayon
- Vancouver, Edmonton, Regina, Winnipeg
- The letters A, E, I, Z
- Dog, Cat, Doughnut, bird
- A carrot, an apple, a pear, a tomato,
- A pillow, a bed, a good night’s sleep and a wide-awake baby
In the psalm that we are looking at today, we will be answering this same sort of question. We will notice how a righteous person is not like the others. We will be contrasting the righteous to the wicked. But before we do that, I think we should have a brief introduction to the book of Psalms.
Can anyone tell me what a psalm is? A poem, a song, a hymn: in the Bible they are written by a few different people. King David composed many that are included in our Book of Psalms (among other things, David was a very famous Psalm writer). Psalms is a collection of hymns and songs; in this way is not unlike our Songbook (or a hymnal). Now I don’t know if everyone here is aware of it or not but there has been discussion in this last year about maybe updating our Salvation Army Songbook. The ancients had done the same sort of thing with the Book of Psalms on at least one occasion. Psalms, in the form that we have now, was probably pulled together from other Psalm-books for use in worship in the Temple in Jerusalem[1] (Zerubbabel’s, Herrod’s Temple and later the synagogues) the same way we traditionally have used songbooks traditionally in worship in The Salvation Army. This version of the Psalm-book that we have in our Bibles with us today may even have been compiled as recently as after the destruction of Solomon’s Temple (586 BCE - 400 BCE)[2] and it could have been used in worship in Zerubbabel’s Temple:[3] this is the temple mentioned in the book of Ezra-Nehemiah which we have been studying here on Tuesdays.
Psalm 1, the psalm that we are looking at today, as well as being the first Psalm in the new Psalm-book, is an introduction to this whole hymnal, the whole collection. “In the Leningrad Codex, on which the standard critical edition of the HB [Hebrew Bible] is based, the first psalm is unnumbered, suggesting that it stands as a heading to the psalms that follow.”[4] Psalm 1 is a holiness psalm and rabbinical traditions at some point actually combined with Psalm 2 as one psalm.[5] Prolific and famous Biblical scholar Walter Breuggemann tells us about Psalm 1 that it is “placed intentionally as a prologue to set the tone for the entire collection [of psalms]. It announces that the primary agenda for Israel’s worship life is obedience. The fundamental contrast is a moral distinction between righteous and wicked, innocent and guilty, those who conform to God's purpose and those who ignore those purposes and disrupt the order.”[6] This quote brings us back to our opening test this morning: Which one of these things is not like the other things? We’ve all seen those criminal line-ups on TV shows; Psalm 1 here separates the Godly from the wicked in the eternal line-up.
Psalm 1:1-3 says of the righteous:
1 Blessed is the man
who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked
or stand in the way of sinners
or sit in the seat of mockers.
2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither.
Whatever he does prospers.
And Verse 6:
For the LORD watches over the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish.
Contrast this to verses 4 and 5:
4 Not so the wicked!
They are like chaff
that the wind blows away.
5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.
We’ll be focusing on verses 1 and 2 today. Verse 1 says:
1 Blessed is the man
who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked
or stand in the way of sinners
or sit in the seat of mockers.
What does it mean to walk in the counsel of the wicked and how do we avoid it? Does it mean that we should not spend time with so-called ‘sinners’? Does it mean that we should not be around people who aren’t ‘holy’? Does it mean that we should spend our whole lives either at home or at church and not be around anyone else in this corrupt, fallen world? Is that what it means? I’m sure we’ve all heard the old expression that bad company corrupts good character. Is that what this is talking about when it says that we should not walk in the counsel of the wicked? Not really: let us not forget that it is only when we are around people that need the Lord that we have any opportunity to share the Lord with them.
The Lord birthed The Salvation Army through the Booths by doing just this – serving the Lord by helping the marginalized in society and sharing the love of God with others. Consecrating our soldiers from the profane world through our covenant, the Lord is able to use the Army in the world to reach many people who may otherwise just slip through the cracks. We do not hide from the wicked. And Jesus, himself, when his disciples are asked why he eats with tax collectors and sinners answers “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick…For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners” (Matthew 9:12, Mark 2:17, Luke 5:31). Jesus does not separate himself from the everyday people of the world in this way. And the Apostle Paul tells us that he has become all things to all people so that by all possible means some may be saved (1 Corinthians 9:22). Jesus and his disciples spent their ministry showing mercy to the people of the world, to the outcasts of society: the poor, the widow, the immigrant. When Jesus is confronted with a women caught in adultery (John 8:1-11), a woman guilty of the death penalty, what does he do? Does Jesus shun her? Does he say ‘bad company corrupts good character’? Does Jesus condemn her? No. Does Jesus accept her sin and tell her to not worry about it because we all sin all the time anyway. No way! He saves her and then Jesus tells her to go and sin no more and if indeed she decides to reject his salvation and does sin again, she will probably receive the due penalty for her sin (Romans 6:23). Jesus, his disciples and apostles do spend time with the outcasts and with sinners; so removing ourselves from them, shunning the sinner can’t be what this psalm should mean to his followers. So what does it mean in Psalm 1, the introduction to this whole anthology of music and poetry, in this the preface to the Hebrew Psalm-book, what does it mean when it says, “Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked” (Psalm 1:1)?
What does it mean to walk in the ways of the wicked? What does it mean to follow their counsel? It means to do what they do. If you claim God but act like everyone else in our North American society and make your decisions based on popularity (democracy) or money (capitalism) and just look out for number one (individualism), for yourself first; if you act like everyone else then you really are no better off than the scoffers, the wicked, the atheists, who as Charles Spurgeon says, ‘have taken their degree in vice’ and are ‘true Doctors of Damnation’[7] (cf. Matthew 7:21-23; 25:31ff). We need to be, like the platitude says: 'We need to be in the world without being of the world’.
We must be the salt and the light to this world that so desperately needs Jesus but we must not be corrupted by the world in the process and this is not necessarily an easy task. Myself, personally, I was not always a tea-totalling Salvationist but I was as far back as I can remember I was always – as my nuclear family says – ‘a part of God’s love family’, a Christian. There were times in my earlier life where I was involved in a lot of bar room ministry that tragically by the end of the night often wound up being far more bar room than ministry. I have an old friend, who reminds me of one such incident – which I am not going to share here – almost every time I see him. In those days, I am sure that it would not be easy to pick me out from that bar room line-up, as one of these things that is not like the other things.
I know that Susan, the children, and I don’t have cable television at home and I never have voluntarily paid for cable TV. I’d like to claim to have done this on moral grounds but the truth probably is that I’m just too cheap – cable is expensive! I have noticed though that whenever we take advantage of a free trial or when I first start watching TV after an absence for a while that I am outraged at the amoral, atheistic, self-serving, perverse values that are promoted on the screen. I am disgusted by all of the greed, lust, vengeance and violence that we invite into our homes through the television. But then if I am still watching TV programmes a month later after my initial shock has dissipated, (even if I am just watching the news or the ‘good shows’ there are always commercials) I find that after a while I don’t notice the sin on the TV screen that once repulsed me. I let myself get drawn into the counsel of the TV producers. I permit myself to be drawn into the ways of the wicked, drawn into the ways of sinners, drawn into the ways of mockers. This is a problem.
This is a real problem. TV isn’t the only example of we Christians being desensitised to sin in our society, so simply turning off our TVs won’t solve this problem and make us immediately identifiable in a line-up of the wicked as one of these things that is not like the other things – it couldn’t hurt though.
More on this: There is a thing called the sin spiral. There is a certain desensitizing that happens when we are surrounded by sin all the time: what might repulse us at first, later we don’t even notice: it has no effect on us. As you know, I have just released my book on covenants. In our greater society as we have started taking our covenants lightly, the Christians have – at least as far as the marriage covenant is concerned – fallen into exactly the same trap as the world becoming indistinguishable from the crowd so that no one would be able to identify us as holy, as separate, as not like the other things.[8]
In our culture today where the majority of us were once followers of Christ, we these days – Christians and non-Christians alike - see sexual assault on the news, TV shows, and newspapers all the time, and students are now it seems not infrequently sexually assaulted on university campuses. In our culture where we see many books and movies about serial killers, North America boasts more serial killers than the rest of the world combined. In a world where violence, murders and killings are shown on TV every night, since the 1990s Canada has been at war steadily and has now albeit abandoned its traditional peace keeping role and has been directly involved at least one illegal war of aggression (NATO’s invasion of Yugoslavia). Canada, which was founded upon the Word of God (Psalm 72), no longer reads the Bible or prays in our schools. We no longer pray the Lord’s Prayer in the federal House of Commons, and instead we as a culture have embraced pornography at rates unheard of in our history. We have chosen instead of walking in the way of righteousness, we have chosen to walk in the ways of the wicked. In North America, pornography generates more wealth than all of the pro-sports and the billions of dollars that are tied up in them, combined. In the US, instead of being salt and light, more than 90% of pastors themselves have confessed to using pornography. They are apparently not unlike the other: the wicked, the sinners, the scoffers of Psalm 1.
If we in this room here were lined up with people in our culture at large or if we in this room here were lined up with the wicked, the sinners, the mockers of our contemporary Canadian society and someone was given the test we were given at the beginning of the message today to pick out which one of these things is not like the other things? Which one of us is not like the others? Which one of these does not belong? Would they pick us? Are we any different than the wicked world around us? Are we here today the blessed people who do not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers?
How can we be? When our whole society seems to reflect the counsel of the wicked, how can we not walk in its ways? I think Verse 2 has our answer. Verse 2 of Psalm 1 tells us more about this person who doesn’t walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. Verse 2 tells us how to stand out as one of these things that is not like the other things. Verse 2 tells us what separates us from the wicked: it is a delight in the Law of God(cf. Song Book #652). Now this Law of God, this is not just referring to the Decalogue. This is not simply referring to the 10 Commandments. This is referring to the whole Pentateuch and Charles Spurgeon tells us “ ‘the law of the Lord’ is the daily bread of the true believer. And yet, in [King] David's day, how small was the volume of inspiration, for they had scarcely anything save the first five books of Moses! How much more, then, should we prize the whole written Word which it is our privilege to have in all our houses!’[9] We now have the scriptures of both the Old and New Testaments and Doctrine 1 of The Salvation Army – which really is my favourite of all our doctrines and I believe stands at the front of all our doctrines not merely by accident, Doctrine 1 states that “We believe that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments were given by inspiration of God, and that they only constitute the Divine rule of Christian faith and practice.” If we test everything against these like the Bareans (Acts 17:11) and meditate on them day and night (Psalm 1:2, 119:97, 143:5; Joshua 1:8) than we shall indeed be salt and light (Matthew 5:13). We will indeed be the light of the world (Matthew 5:14, Luke 16:8; cf. John 1:9, 3:19, 8:12 12:46).
This is the challenge for us today: as Christ was born, died, and rose again so that we all may have life and have life abundantly (John 15). Let us not reject that gift by being indistinguishable from the world at large. Let us not hide our light under a bushel (Luke 8:16), rather let us go out into the world armed with the sword of the Word of God (Ephesians 6:17) – remember that we as a congregation here have committed to invite as many of our friends out to church as we are able to; we don’t want any of them to blend in with the world. We want us all to be saved from that. After all Christ lived, died, and rose from the grave so that we can all live lives holy for him and so in the Scripture we read this week we are given a good tip as to how to do that - let us meditate on His Scriptures day and night; let us pick up our Bibles and read them; let us talk about what they say. Let us question each other on our exegesis and let us keep our friends accountable; let us delight in the Word of the Lord so that when he does come back and we are all standing before him on judgement day he will indeed readily identify each of us as one of these things is not like the other things of this world because we have accepted his welcome into his kingdom with open arms…
Let us pray.
www.sheepspeak.com
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[1] Steven Shawn Tuell, 'Psalm 1' in Interpretation Issue 63 no. 3 (July 2009), p 278
[2] Derek Kidner, Psalms 1-72: An Introduction and Commentary. Downers Grove, IL : InterVarsity Press, 1973 (Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries 15), S. 21: For all this, Gunkel still considered that most of the material in the Psalter was post-exilic, but written still in the idiom created by the old rituals, although they were outgrown and religion had ‘come of age’—for this celebrated metaphor was his, a generation before it was Bonhoeffer’s. It was the conservatism of religious habit, he considered, which left the stamp of the old cultic patterns on the new spiritual material, so that the private suppliant used language that had been designed to serve the king, or spoke of his troubles and their cure as if they were the assaults of sickness and the rites of expiation
[3] NIV Study Bible Introduction to Psalms, page 777.
[4] Steven Shawn Tuell, 'Psalm 1' in Interpretation Issue 63 no. 3 (July 2009), p 278
[5] Willem A. VanGemeren, The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Pradis CD-ROM:Psalms/Exposition of Psalms/BOOK I: Psalms 1-41/Psalm 1: God's Blessing on the Godly, Book Version: 4.0.2. Cf. Craig, Psalms 1-50, p. 59; and "Psalms 1-2 as a Coronation Liturgy," Biblica 52 [1971]: 321-36.
[6] Walter Bruggemann, The Message of the Psalms: A Theological Commentary, 1984 Augsburg Publishing House, Augsburg MN. Available on-line: http://graham-turner.com/Resources/Brueggemann/The%20Message%20of%20the%20Psalms%20Walter%20Brueggemann%20NOTES.doc
[7] Charles H. Spurgeon, ‘The Treasury of David Vol. 1: Psalms 1-57’, Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, pages 1-2.
[8] Captain Michael Ramsay, 'Praise The Lord For Covenants: Old Testament wisdom for our world today'. Vancouver, BC: Credo Press, 2010. © The Salvation Army, pages 48-50.
[9] Charles H. Spurgeon, ‘The Treasury of David Vol. 1: Psalms 1-57’, Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, p. 1.
By Captain Michael Ramsay
Which one of these things is not like the other things?
- A banana, a lemon, a yellow crayon, a black shoe
- Pen, pencil, ruler, a pencil crayon
- Vancouver, Edmonton, Regina, Winnipeg
- The letters A, E, I, Z
- Dog, Cat, Doughnut, bird
- A carrot, an apple, a pear, a tomato,
- A pillow, a bed, a good night’s sleep and a wide-awake baby
In the psalm that we are looking at today, we will be answering this same sort of question. We will notice how a righteous person is not like the others. We will be contrasting the righteous to the wicked. But before we do that, I think we should have a brief introduction to the book of Psalms.
Can anyone tell me what a psalm is? A poem, a song, a hymn: in the Bible they are written by a few different people. King David composed many that are included in our Book of Psalms (among other things, David was a very famous Psalm writer). Psalms is a collection of hymns and songs; in this way is not unlike our Songbook (or a hymnal). Now I don’t know if everyone here is aware of it or not but there has been discussion in this last year about maybe updating our Salvation Army Songbook. The ancients had done the same sort of thing with the Book of Psalms on at least one occasion. Psalms, in the form that we have now, was probably pulled together from other Psalm-books for use in worship in the Temple in Jerusalem[1] (Zerubbabel’s, Herrod’s Temple and later the synagogues) the same way we traditionally have used songbooks traditionally in worship in The Salvation Army. This version of the Psalm-book that we have in our Bibles with us today may even have been compiled as recently as after the destruction of Solomon’s Temple (586 BCE - 400 BCE)[2] and it could have been used in worship in Zerubbabel’s Temple:[3] this is the temple mentioned in the book of Ezra-Nehemiah which we have been studying here on Tuesdays.
Psalm 1, the psalm that we are looking at today, as well as being the first Psalm in the new Psalm-book, is an introduction to this whole hymnal, the whole collection. “In the Leningrad Codex, on which the standard critical edition of the HB [Hebrew Bible] is based, the first psalm is unnumbered, suggesting that it stands as a heading to the psalms that follow.”[4] Psalm 1 is a holiness psalm and rabbinical traditions at some point actually combined with Psalm 2 as one psalm.[5] Prolific and famous Biblical scholar Walter Breuggemann tells us about Psalm 1 that it is “placed intentionally as a prologue to set the tone for the entire collection [of psalms]. It announces that the primary agenda for Israel’s worship life is obedience. The fundamental contrast is a moral distinction between righteous and wicked, innocent and guilty, those who conform to God's purpose and those who ignore those purposes and disrupt the order.”[6] This quote brings us back to our opening test this morning: Which one of these things is not like the other things? We’ve all seen those criminal line-ups on TV shows; Psalm 1 here separates the Godly from the wicked in the eternal line-up.
Psalm 1:1-3 says of the righteous:
1 Blessed is the man
who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked
or stand in the way of sinners
or sit in the seat of mockers.
2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither.
Whatever he does prospers.
And Verse 6:
For the LORD watches over the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish.
Contrast this to verses 4 and 5:
4 Not so the wicked!
They are like chaff
that the wind blows away.
5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.
We’ll be focusing on verses 1 and 2 today. Verse 1 says:
1 Blessed is the man
who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked
or stand in the way of sinners
or sit in the seat of mockers.
What does it mean to walk in the counsel of the wicked and how do we avoid it? Does it mean that we should not spend time with so-called ‘sinners’? Does it mean that we should not be around people who aren’t ‘holy’? Does it mean that we should spend our whole lives either at home or at church and not be around anyone else in this corrupt, fallen world? Is that what it means? I’m sure we’ve all heard the old expression that bad company corrupts good character. Is that what this is talking about when it says that we should not walk in the counsel of the wicked? Not really: let us not forget that it is only when we are around people that need the Lord that we have any opportunity to share the Lord with them.
The Lord birthed The Salvation Army through the Booths by doing just this – serving the Lord by helping the marginalized in society and sharing the love of God with others. Consecrating our soldiers from the profane world through our covenant, the Lord is able to use the Army in the world to reach many people who may otherwise just slip through the cracks. We do not hide from the wicked. And Jesus, himself, when his disciples are asked why he eats with tax collectors and sinners answers “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick…For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners” (Matthew 9:12, Mark 2:17, Luke 5:31). Jesus does not separate himself from the everyday people of the world in this way. And the Apostle Paul tells us that he has become all things to all people so that by all possible means some may be saved (1 Corinthians 9:22). Jesus and his disciples spent their ministry showing mercy to the people of the world, to the outcasts of society: the poor, the widow, the immigrant. When Jesus is confronted with a women caught in adultery (John 8:1-11), a woman guilty of the death penalty, what does he do? Does Jesus shun her? Does he say ‘bad company corrupts good character’? Does Jesus condemn her? No. Does Jesus accept her sin and tell her to not worry about it because we all sin all the time anyway. No way! He saves her and then Jesus tells her to go and sin no more and if indeed she decides to reject his salvation and does sin again, she will probably receive the due penalty for her sin (Romans 6:23). Jesus, his disciples and apostles do spend time with the outcasts and with sinners; so removing ourselves from them, shunning the sinner can’t be what this psalm should mean to his followers. So what does it mean in Psalm 1, the introduction to this whole anthology of music and poetry, in this the preface to the Hebrew Psalm-book, what does it mean when it says, “Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked” (Psalm 1:1)?
What does it mean to walk in the ways of the wicked? What does it mean to follow their counsel? It means to do what they do. If you claim God but act like everyone else in our North American society and make your decisions based on popularity (democracy) or money (capitalism) and just look out for number one (individualism), for yourself first; if you act like everyone else then you really are no better off than the scoffers, the wicked, the atheists, who as Charles Spurgeon says, ‘have taken their degree in vice’ and are ‘true Doctors of Damnation’[7] (cf. Matthew 7:21-23; 25:31ff). We need to be, like the platitude says: 'We need to be in the world without being of the world’.
We must be the salt and the light to this world that so desperately needs Jesus but we must not be corrupted by the world in the process and this is not necessarily an easy task. Myself, personally, I was not always a tea-totalling Salvationist but I was as far back as I can remember I was always – as my nuclear family says – ‘a part of God’s love family’, a Christian. There were times in my earlier life where I was involved in a lot of bar room ministry that tragically by the end of the night often wound up being far more bar room than ministry. I have an old friend, who reminds me of one such incident – which I am not going to share here – almost every time I see him. In those days, I am sure that it would not be easy to pick me out from that bar room line-up, as one of these things that is not like the other things.
I know that Susan, the children, and I don’t have cable television at home and I never have voluntarily paid for cable TV. I’d like to claim to have done this on moral grounds but the truth probably is that I’m just too cheap – cable is expensive! I have noticed though that whenever we take advantage of a free trial or when I first start watching TV after an absence for a while that I am outraged at the amoral, atheistic, self-serving, perverse values that are promoted on the screen. I am disgusted by all of the greed, lust, vengeance and violence that we invite into our homes through the television. But then if I am still watching TV programmes a month later after my initial shock has dissipated, (even if I am just watching the news or the ‘good shows’ there are always commercials) I find that after a while I don’t notice the sin on the TV screen that once repulsed me. I let myself get drawn into the counsel of the TV producers. I permit myself to be drawn into the ways of the wicked, drawn into the ways of sinners, drawn into the ways of mockers. This is a problem.
This is a real problem. TV isn’t the only example of we Christians being desensitised to sin in our society, so simply turning off our TVs won’t solve this problem and make us immediately identifiable in a line-up of the wicked as one of these things that is not like the other things – it couldn’t hurt though.
More on this: There is a thing called the sin spiral. There is a certain desensitizing that happens when we are surrounded by sin all the time: what might repulse us at first, later we don’t even notice: it has no effect on us. As you know, I have just released my book on covenants. In our greater society as we have started taking our covenants lightly, the Christians have – at least as far as the marriage covenant is concerned – fallen into exactly the same trap as the world becoming indistinguishable from the crowd so that no one would be able to identify us as holy, as separate, as not like the other things.[8]
In our culture today where the majority of us were once followers of Christ, we these days – Christians and non-Christians alike - see sexual assault on the news, TV shows, and newspapers all the time, and students are now it seems not infrequently sexually assaulted on university campuses. In our culture where we see many books and movies about serial killers, North America boasts more serial killers than the rest of the world combined. In a world where violence, murders and killings are shown on TV every night, since the 1990s Canada has been at war steadily and has now albeit abandoned its traditional peace keeping role and has been directly involved at least one illegal war of aggression (NATO’s invasion of Yugoslavia). Canada, which was founded upon the Word of God (Psalm 72), no longer reads the Bible or prays in our schools. We no longer pray the Lord’s Prayer in the federal House of Commons, and instead we as a culture have embraced pornography at rates unheard of in our history. We have chosen instead of walking in the way of righteousness, we have chosen to walk in the ways of the wicked. In North America, pornography generates more wealth than all of the pro-sports and the billions of dollars that are tied up in them, combined. In the US, instead of being salt and light, more than 90% of pastors themselves have confessed to using pornography. They are apparently not unlike the other: the wicked, the sinners, the scoffers of Psalm 1.
If we in this room here were lined up with people in our culture at large or if we in this room here were lined up with the wicked, the sinners, the mockers of our contemporary Canadian society and someone was given the test we were given at the beginning of the message today to pick out which one of these things is not like the other things? Which one of us is not like the others? Which one of these does not belong? Would they pick us? Are we any different than the wicked world around us? Are we here today the blessed people who do not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers?
How can we be? When our whole society seems to reflect the counsel of the wicked, how can we not walk in its ways? I think Verse 2 has our answer. Verse 2 of Psalm 1 tells us more about this person who doesn’t walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. Verse 2 tells us how to stand out as one of these things that is not like the other things. Verse 2 tells us what separates us from the wicked: it is a delight in the Law of God(cf. Song Book #652). Now this Law of God, this is not just referring to the Decalogue. This is not simply referring to the 10 Commandments. This is referring to the whole Pentateuch and Charles Spurgeon tells us “ ‘the law of the Lord’ is the daily bread of the true believer. And yet, in [King] David's day, how small was the volume of inspiration, for they had scarcely anything save the first five books of Moses! How much more, then, should we prize the whole written Word which it is our privilege to have in all our houses!’[9] We now have the scriptures of both the Old and New Testaments and Doctrine 1 of The Salvation Army – which really is my favourite of all our doctrines and I believe stands at the front of all our doctrines not merely by accident, Doctrine 1 states that “We believe that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments were given by inspiration of God, and that they only constitute the Divine rule of Christian faith and practice.” If we test everything against these like the Bareans (Acts 17:11) and meditate on them day and night (Psalm 1:2, 119:97, 143:5; Joshua 1:8) than we shall indeed be salt and light (Matthew 5:13). We will indeed be the light of the world (Matthew 5:14, Luke 16:8; cf. John 1:9, 3:19, 8:12 12:46).
This is the challenge for us today: as Christ was born, died, and rose again so that we all may have life and have life abundantly (John 15). Let us not reject that gift by being indistinguishable from the world at large. Let us not hide our light under a bushel (Luke 8:16), rather let us go out into the world armed with the sword of the Word of God (Ephesians 6:17) – remember that we as a congregation here have committed to invite as many of our friends out to church as we are able to; we don’t want any of them to blend in with the world. We want us all to be saved from that. After all Christ lived, died, and rose from the grave so that we can all live lives holy for him and so in the Scripture we read this week we are given a good tip as to how to do that - let us meditate on His Scriptures day and night; let us pick up our Bibles and read them; let us talk about what they say. Let us question each other on our exegesis and let us keep our friends accountable; let us delight in the Word of the Lord so that when he does come back and we are all standing before him on judgement day he will indeed readily identify each of us as one of these things is not like the other things of this world because we have accepted his welcome into his kingdom with open arms…
Let us pray.
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[1] Steven Shawn Tuell, 'Psalm 1' in Interpretation Issue 63 no. 3 (July 2009), p 278
[2] Derek Kidner, Psalms 1-72: An Introduction and Commentary. Downers Grove, IL : InterVarsity Press, 1973 (Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries 15), S. 21: For all this, Gunkel still considered that most of the material in the Psalter was post-exilic, but written still in the idiom created by the old rituals, although they were outgrown and religion had ‘come of age’—for this celebrated metaphor was his, a generation before it was Bonhoeffer’s. It was the conservatism of religious habit, he considered, which left the stamp of the old cultic patterns on the new spiritual material, so that the private suppliant used language that had been designed to serve the king, or spoke of his troubles and their cure as if they were the assaults of sickness and the rites of expiation
[3] NIV Study Bible Introduction to Psalms, page 777.
[4] Steven Shawn Tuell, 'Psalm 1' in Interpretation Issue 63 no. 3 (July 2009), p 278
[5] Willem A. VanGemeren, The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Pradis CD-ROM:Psalms/Exposition of Psalms/BOOK I: Psalms 1-41/Psalm 1: God's Blessing on the Godly, Book Version: 4.0.2. Cf. Craig, Psalms 1-50, p. 59; and "Psalms 1-2 as a Coronation Liturgy," Biblica 52 [1971]: 321-36.
[6] Walter Bruggemann, The Message of the Psalms: A Theological Commentary, 1984 Augsburg Publishing House, Augsburg MN. Available on-line: http://graham-turner.com/Resources/Brueggemann/The%20Message%20of%20the%20Psalms%20Walter%20Brueggemann%20NOTES.doc
[7] Charles H. Spurgeon, ‘The Treasury of David Vol. 1: Psalms 1-57’, Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, pages 1-2.
[8] Captain Michael Ramsay, 'Praise The Lord For Covenants: Old Testament wisdom for our world today'. Vancouver, BC: Credo Press, 2010. © The Salvation Army, pages 48-50.
[9] Charles H. Spurgeon, ‘The Treasury of David Vol. 1: Psalms 1-57’, Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, p. 1.
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