A great old hymn from 1873, "Christ is All," includes the stanzas,
- I saw a martyr at the stake,
The flames could not his courage shake,
Nor death his soul appall;
I asked him whence his strength was giv’n;
He looked triumphantly to Heav’n,
And answered, “Christ is all.” - I saw the gospel herald go
To Africa’s sand and Greenland’s snow,
To save from Satan’s thrall;
Nor home nor life he counted dear,
Midst wants and perils owned no fear,
He felt that “Christ is all.” - I dreamed that hoary time had fled,
And earth and sea gave up their dead,
A fire dissolved this ball;
I saw the church’s ransomed throng,
I heard the burden of their song,
’Twas “Christ is all in all.” - Psalm 90 begins, [1] LORD, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.
[3] Thou turnest man to destruction; and sayest, Return, ye children of men.
[4] For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.
[5] Thou carriest them away as with a flood; they are as a sleep: in the morning they are like grass which groweth up.
[6] In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth up; in the evening it is cut down, and withereth.
Jordan explains, " 'Everlasting to everlasting.' What's that? Like a weaver's beam. It's like going to sleep, waking up, a third of my day's gone. It's just ffttoo, gone. It's like a flood coming, sweeping it away. Before I can get up, I'm gone.
"It's like grass growing and then, boom, the heat comes and kills it--in a day! That's a strange thing in that illustration. He doesn't even give the grass time to grow in the field for a month. It just sprouts out and then the heat comes and whoosh. He's talking about the brevity of your life.
"Verse 10: [10] The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.
"That's where the song 'I'll Fly Away' came from. It's talking about death. That's why we change the words in that song from, 'When I die,' to 'When I rise,' because we don't fly away at death. We think of that song as talking about the resurrection at the Rapture and that doesn't take place at death; that takes place when the Lord comes.
"Verse 12: [12] So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.
"We need to count one by one and live every day like it's the last day. That's in essence the issue here. Make everything out of every day you can.
"Verse 13: [13] Return, O LORD, how long? and let it repent thee concerning thy servants.
"That's that tribulation cry found in Revelation 6: [9] And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held:
[10] And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?
"Go through all the Book of the Psalms, and if you look for that phrase 'how long' and find the text where it's found, you'll be finding a tribulation Jew, a member of the little flock crying out for the Lord for deliverance from the tribulation into the kingdom.
"When he says, 'Return, O Lord,' here's the faithful remnant looking for the Lord to come and deliver them.
" 'How long is it going to go on? Let it repent thee concerning thy servants.' I love that. In Jeremiah 18 they go to the potter's house and the Lord tells Jerry, 'Look at what's going on with the potter. He makes the vessel in his hand and it's marred and he pushes the clay back down and makes another vessel.'
"It's made, it gets marred and then he mends it. He takes that same lump of clay and reshapes it into another vessel. He says, 'That's the way I treat you; the way I treat Israel. If you obey my voice, I'll bless you. If you don't, well then I'll reshape you into a vessel of destruction. But if you come back, I'll reshape you into a vessel of mercy.' That's the illustration Paul uses in Romans 9.
"So when it says, 'Let it repent thee,' in other words, 'You planned wrath but we're going to believe. So change your mind about the destruction. We're returning.'
"Here's what they're crying for; they're asking the Lord to do what He intended to do. Jesus taught His disciples to pray, 'Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth.'
"That's in essence what these guys are praying: 'You've got a plan for the earth; bring it on! We want to be a part of it!'
" 'Satisfy us early with thy mercy.' Don't wait! Come on, we're looking for you to come.' "
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Here's a related post:
"With the suffering of our day, we understand why Paul calls it the present peril because, in the dispensation of grace, God's not dealing with us like He dealt with Israel," says Jordan.
"Because God's not intervening in our lives to turn away the difficult situations, that's why Paul writes in Romans 8:35-36, 'Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
[36] As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.
" The word as is an illustration; for is a fulfillment. Paul is quoting Psalm 44: [22] Yea, for thy sake are we killed all the day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter.
[23] Awake, why sleepest thou, O Lord? arise, cast us not off for ever.
[24] Wherefore hidest thou thy face, and forgettest our affliction and our oppression?
[25] For our soul is bowed down to the dust: our belly cleaveth unto the earth.
"That's the 'believing remnant of Israel' in the day of Jacob's trouble and they are petitioning the Lord. How long are they killed? All the day long. There's no relief. It's just getting worse and worse; it doesn't stop. Paul says when you experience these things in Romans 8:35, you come to the conclusion that there's no intervention; it's just rolling over us.
"In Philippians 1, Paul says your adversaries see that and they seek to terrorize you. Terrorize is an intensified form of fear. These things don't go away through the common lot we have.
"The tribulation, which means trouble, is in three categories as I see them. There's personal things, economic things and social things.
"In John 16:33 Jesus says, 'In the world you'll have tribulation.' Paul says in Acts 14:22, [22] Confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God.
"He's talking about our lives, not the prophetic 70th Week of Daniel. You're going to have that roller coaster of experiences in life that produces hardships, death, divorce, desertion, depression, disease, betrayal, whatever it is.
"All of that produces heartache, fear. It causes you to focus on what's going on here, right now with me, inward feelings of inadequacies, failures, turmoil. It's a roller coaster of emotions and it's designed to say, 'Life's unfair and God doesn't care,' and separate you from this great love of Christ.
"Ephesians 5 says, [25] Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it. How did He love the church? He gave Himself for it based on how much He loved. He loved the church according to the will of His Father. Jesus Christ valued, esteemed, cherished, delighted in the will of His Father so much that He was willing to be obedient to the Cross.
"Trouble gets you to focus on yourself and forget all that. Distress means to be pressed into a tight place; the pressure that comes to prevent you from applying the life you have in Christ. It's the pressure to go and hide and it creates an unsettled mind and thinking process, feelings of helplessness, panic. The opposite of calm and assured, confident and hopeful.
"You need to understand that the fear and the intimidation that builds up in you is a satanic attack; a tactic to separate you away from the fact that your real identity is in who you are in Christ.
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"When Paul lists famine and nakedness, famine is the lack of food and nakedness is the idea of, 'We've been stripped away of all the things that make us attractive in the world.' That's the opposite of I Timothy: [7] For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.
[8] And having food and raiment let us be therewith content.
"Perils refers to dangerous times where you're in danger of losing everything and everyone. That's those immediate, personal, life-threatening things that come in society.
"Listen, you and I have lived in a culture that's been very friendly toward things that you like in life; lifestyles that you like. It's not that way anymore.
"For many decades now Americans have been talking about the culture wars. What you're seeing in the culture right now is the last gasp of watching the old ship sink.
"Consequently, the perils are in your lifetime, actually right now . . . If you go out and broadcast Romans 1 you'll be in danger, not just of social isolation but of social assault.
"There's certain things you can say and can't say without being assaulted, and the things you're not going to be able to say are things about the gospel; basic fundamental things that you and I think are normal. Things about the institutions that God established to give structure to humanity.
"Twenty-five years ago you never would have thought about having to redefine marriage, but now in the culture you can't define marriage biblically and not be in peril. What is that? That's an intimidation, a dart designed to singe you, put the heat on you, make you say, 'I'll give up; I'll be quiet.'
"The sword is government. They don't bear the sword in vain. You're going to watch in the world we live in governmental persecution, all those things.
"The American experiment with liberty is the odd man in the world. Our world has been the fruit of the working out of the spiritual impact of the Protestant Reformation, but that impact has been undercut and is imploding now. We're going to go back to being like 90% of the rest of the world where governments run things, control things.
"Satan uses the world system to fire those darts at you because they are personally designed to impact in your life to separate you away from the love of Christ; from the ability to value and esteem what He's done and how He functions.
"What gets the little flock through the tribulation is they understand God is doing something in purging His nation, and you and I can look at what's going on today and say, 'For thy sake we suffer this.' Why? Because God's chosen to extend the dispensation of grace one more day.
"When you walk in light you know where to put your foot next. The Psalm says 'thy Word is a lamp under my feet and a light.' I know where to put my foot next and the light shines onto the destination I'm going.
"Now, between the destination and my feet there might be darkness, but I'm not worried; I know where I'm going and I know where to put my next foot because the lamp tells me. It shows me the footage."
(new article tomorrow)
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