Today I sat in my own church in Cumming, GA, for the first time in many weeks due mainly to Joe's surgery and subsequent rehab process, grateful to God for His mercy. My dear husband sat in a wheelchair behind the 'semi-pulpit,' not the one he can thump on when he gets excited, but a sort of wrap-around wooden guardpost of sorts. The real pulpit, one that has a history that goes back over 30 years, was to his right--strange, it almost looked like a divided chancelry, something we think unbiblical! Anyway, he preached a magnificent sermon from Psalm 36, a sermon of encouragement and conviction for our lack of faith in a Sovereign God Who does all things well. How can you sit there and preach that kind of thing when you have experienced so much pain, I thought? How can you preach that a goodGod is in charge and has a purpose for all He does when you see sitting before you grandparents whose beautiful, vibrant 19 year old granddaughter and her precious boyfriend were so tragically killed a few weeks ago? When the beautiful young woman clutching her three-year old to her on the front row just lost her loving mother to horrendous cancer? When the lovely lady behind her will have a third of her lung removed from cancer on Thursday? When we face several years of liberal political diatribes and policies that will seek to strip us of our hard-won liberties, hard-earned money and put an end to Biblical policies and standards for governing? How can you say that God is good when the world is going to hell in a handbasket???
Then I realized with a settled solemnity that was almost audible: you can preach nothing else because what you preach is the truth! God IS on His throne--He will have the last laugh! Thank God we don't get our doctrine from the newspaper but from His Word which has never failed from age to age!
"For with Thee is the fountain of life; in Thy light we see light. O continue Thy lovingkindness to those who know Thee, and Thy righteousness to the upright in heart. Let not the foot of pride come upon me and let not the hand of the wicked drive me away. There the doers of iniquity have fallen; they have been thrust down and cannot rise." Psalm 36:10-12
Did somebody say, Amen?
Then I realized with a settled solemnity that was almost audible: you can preach nothing else because what you preach is the truth! God IS on His throne--He will have the last laugh! Thank God we don't get our doctrine from the newspaper but from His Word which has never failed from age to age!
"For with Thee is the fountain of life; in Thy light we see light. O continue Thy lovingkindness to those who know Thee, and Thy righteousness to the upright in heart. Let not the foot of pride come upon me and let not the hand of the wicked drive me away. There the doers of iniquity have fallen; they have been thrust down and cannot rise." Psalm 36:10-12
Did somebody say, Amen?
