What a revolting development this is?

I've already had a Christmas I won't forget. I broke down in the dark Saturday night on Interstate 65, going 70 m.p.h. on a very busy stretch, after hearing a loud knock and rumble under the hood and then, to add insult to injury, a big pop from my rear tire! No, I hadn't hit anything!

Fortunately, I was able to rent a room at the Fairfield Inn in Lafayette, IN. My brother and mother drove almost three hours the next morning from Dayton, OH to come get me.

Got a call yesterday from the garage my car was towed to and just the Honda-certified parts alone to fix snapped idle pulley and other resulting problems is $650. This figure doesn't include ruined tire and tow fee. As a result, I've decided to give up on my 2003 Civic hatchback with 177,000 miles.

The hardest pill to swallow is I noticed a new noise my car was making when I was in the city on Thursday visiting a friend with multiple myeloma cancer for Christmas. I took it to a garage near my house early Friday morning and, even though they said they were going to put it up shortly (even telling me I could wait in the waiting room but it would be at least a half hour), hadn't touched it when I called the next morning. I had told them when I dropped it off that I was hoping to leave town in the morning.

"Oh, it's being brought in right now; we'll call you shortly," I was told when I phoned promptly at their 8 a.m. opening Saturday. I called again at noon and it still hadn't been touched! When they put me through to a mechanic upon calling me back an hour later, he told me they thought maybe it could be the idle pulley going bad or it could be the water pump.

Another hour went by and they told me my car was ready. They didn't work on it! They simply charged me for my oil change, telling me they didn't hear the noise I was describing and that the car seemed fine to them. I started out my journey hearing the noise but thinking it must not be anything important.

Checking in to the hotel at 8 p.m., I was lifted by a quote hand-written in chalk on a tabletop slate board at the front desk: "When something goes wrong, look for what went right."

*****

Paul writes in II Corinthians 1, [3] Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort;
[4] Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.
[5] For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ.
[6] And whether we be afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effectual in the enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer: or whether we be comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation.
[7] And our hope of you is stedfast, knowing, that as ye are partakers of the sufferings, so shall ye be also of the consolation.

“The word ‘comfort’ is an interesting word," explains my pastor, Richard Jordan. "We usually think about comfort like patting somebody on the back, making them feel better. But the word 'comfort' in the Bible really means to fortify somebody in their inner man. ‘Fort’ is for fortitude. The prefix ‘com’ is ‘to bring it into your life’ with fortitude. ‘To be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man.’

"That’s what comfort is and that’s what sound doctrine does in your inner man. The more doctrine--the more explanation, the more details you have--the more comfort there is.

“I’m often struck by I Thessalonians 4:18: ‘Wherefore comfort one another with these words.’ This is what Paul writes after describing the details of the Rapture.

"I’ve thought and thought about that passage in the context of I Corinthians 15:52: ‘In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.’

“It takes longer to read that than it takes for that to happen! Your resurrection is going to take place at the speed of light.

“That moment there . . . the Greek word translated ‘moment’ is our word ‘atom.’ When that word ‘atom’ got into the English language, it meant ‘the smallest part of something.’ Now, we now know you can split the atom and find some smaller things, but the reason they use that word in English is because that was the smallest thing anybody knew about. In order to define that, Paul goes on to call it ‘in the twinkling of an eye.’ The reflection of light off of your eye.

“Well, how fast does light travel? 186,000 miles per second, rounded off. That’s kind of fast, give or take a few miles. That’s pretty quick. It’s only 24,000 miles around the earth. That means every 100,000 miles you go better than four times around the earth and for 186,000, you’d go about 7-8 times around the earth a second. Whoa, you talk about BUSY, man!

*****

Peace in trouble, you learn at higher and higher levels, comes from standing and resting in the truth of God’s Word, says Jordan. "More and more, putting to the death the 'old man' and the habits of the flesh is part of those rivers of living water that are torrents in the inner being flooding out everything that is not God.

“There’s never any growth without pressure or obstacles. Agape love is a mental-attitude love. By knowing ‘tribulation worketh,’ we learn how much God loves us; how highly He values and esteems us. We’re told ‘the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost.’

“That ‘shed abroad’ is like a great river coursing and flowing over our soul. It just comes and courses in and flows in over us and refreshes us. It’s like the old Nestea Plunge commercial. This sweaty, hot guy falls off into that pool and you just almost want to go ‘Ahhh’ yourself when you see him go under.

"It’s the Holy Spirit that takes all of these things as they happen to us; it’s the Holy Spirit that takes the Word of God and builds up in our soul strength. We’re strengthened by His Spirit in the inner man.

“People, it’s the Word of God that energizes us. God’s Spirit works through His Word and He takes what we know about these things and energizes us.

"As David writes in Psalm 36, 'How excellent is thy lovingkindness, O God! therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of thy wings.
[8] They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house; and thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures.
[9] For with thee is the fountain of life: in thy light shall we see light.'

*****

"The Psalms are packed full of the pure and honest heart cries of people who found themselves in all sorts of circumstances. I love the honesty with which they felt free to approach God," writes a blogger with the site "A Love Worth Living For." "The vast majority of Psalms came pouring out of a heart wrought with pain and turmoil. Most of them are laments. They are the songs of the people of God crying out to Him in the midst of loss, persecutions, obstacles, trials, and heartaches. The Psalms are a beautiful haven when life is tough because they remind us of the power found in praise and worship regardless of our distresses. They point us to the comfort found in His presence, even in the midst of pain, when we remember how wonderfully faithful and kind He is."

*****

“I remember I used to read Psalm 88 years ago and think, ‘Man, there’s not a ray of sunshine in that psalm!’" says Jordan. "Somebody has said that there’s ‘no ray of light or word of comfort’ in this whole psalm. That’s true except for verse 1: ‘O LORD God of my salvation.’

“The only hope in that psalm is the first phrase. The rest of it is just a plaintive cry of the Believing Remnant in Israel as they are consumed by the despair and the persecution of that time of Jacob’s trouble, and you see that deep longing that takes hold of the Little Flock’s heart as they look to the Lord for deliverance.

"Psalm 89 is the deliverance. It’s sort of the capstone of the description of the deliverance and the avenging and the release of Israel from all the persecution into this great light—this sunshine of the sure mercies of David. Coming as it does after Psalm 88, it would certainly be a great balm.

"Isaiah, when he talks about John the Baptist, he says, ‘Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem,’ this is the kind of stuff that will comfort them. Just like the words about God’s grace and the provision you have in Christ comforts you, these things are what give hope and comfort, strength and support for the nation Israel."

*****

A Maschil is a psalm designed for the edification, the education, the understanding to be enlightened. It’s an instructive psalm. These titles, when it says a Maschil, there other kinds of psalms, and what those titles do is they tell you what the intent of the psalm is.

Psalm 89 says it’s a "Maschil of Ethan the Ezrahite." "In I Kings 4 and I Chronicles 25 you find Ethan," explains Jordan. "He was the wisest of Solomon’s counselors. God had told Solomon (I Kings 11) that because of his idolatry, the kingdom was going to be taken away from his sons and wasn’t going to continue in his family, and Ethan would have known about that.

“That’s why we’re going to read about the failure of the son of David to accomplish, and so Ethan writes this in the light, obviously, of knowing God was going to take the kingdom line lineage of Solomon away from his sons. But God wasn’t going to take the covenant away from David because there was going to be another son of David to accomplish what God promised.

“Psalm 89 says, 'I will sing of the mercies of the LORD for ever: with my mouth will I make known thy faithfulness to all generations.
[2] For I have said, Mercy shall be built up for ever: thy faithfulness shalt thou establish in the very heavens.
[3] I have made a covenant with my chosen, I have sworn unto David my servant,
[4] Thy seed will I establish for ever, and build up thy throne to all generations. Selah.’

“In either verse two or three, Ethan quits talking and now God’s talking. And it’s really going to be God, through Ethan, talking for the rest of the chapter.

“Now, that term ‘Selah’ in prophecy . . .  I know what they say in the devotional commentaries, that that’s a rest note in music, and that’s true, and that you are supposed to stop and contemplate that and think about what he just wrote.

“But, you know, you’re supposed to meditate on all the words. When you see that word Selah in your Bible, especially in the psalms, that term does two things. No. 1, it tells you the context is the Second Advent. Two, you want to stop and think about this passage in light of the Second Coming.

“So it’s a little flag, a reminder, a thing to point out to you the context doctrinally is going to be the Second Advent. And if you want to see where you can know that for sure it’s Habakkuk 3.”

(new article tomorrow--promise)