Launderer's Soap

 

But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap.

—Malachi 3:2

Remember the stories we have heard about doing laundry during the generations of our ancestors? We’ve been told that our great-grandmother found it necessary to scrub the dirty clothes over a washboard and use coarse, alkali soap. No “pods” full of a sudsy detergent thrown into an automatic washer. To “rub out” the stains and grease, she showed no mercy to the old-fashioned fabrics.

Could the prophet Malachi have been expressing God’s intention that His people go through this kind of rigorous scrubbing on a daily basis? No, I don’t think so. Malachi was using this image for the important work of preparing for the coming of the Lord. In Malachi’s day, we can see the reference to Jesus’ coming the first time. But, in the context of Malachi’s words, we can also see a reference to Jesus’ second coming. Malachi 3:1 shares God’s words:

“Suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the Lord Almighty.

Once John the Baptist came on the scene, he continued with the prophecy by telling the people in Luke 3:7-8:

You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.

This kind of straight talk from God’s spokesmen was meant to wake up those who wanted to follow Him. They would not be prepared for Jesus’ coming by simply standing by and watching other people, or by sitting on the sidelines believing this constituted readiness. These prophets meant business and expected Jesus to come with the kind of abrasive cleansing that would take away the deep stain of sin which has permeated the fabric of our lives.

The coming Season of Lent gives us a perfect time to examine our lives, to allow a deep scrubbing away of our ingrained sins, to change old habits, and to develop new godly habits. We should remember that we are preparing for that second coming of Christ at some yet unknown time—as suddenly for us as the birth of Christ was for the first century believers.

In these days, let us remember the words of the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 5:25 that remind us of Christ’s love and intent for His church:

Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.

During this Season of Lent, let us give ourselves to Christ for His cleansing, by allowing His written Word to go after the stains of our sin. Although it may not be pleasant, as Christ’s bride, may we be ready to meet Him when He suddenly comes to us. May God help us and bless us during this precious Season of Lent.

 

 

A Reflection

 

One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.

—Psalm 27:4

I have a premise that I would like to share with you:

That which we gaze upon becomes what we reflect to others.

I don’t think I am off base when I compare this premise with Scripture. In Psalm 8, we read that God’s glory has been set above the heavens and that He has crowned us humans with glory and honor. He shows forth His inherent glory and He gives us derived glory.

The sun and moon illustrate this idea. The moon’s light is derived from the more powerful light of the sun. When we look at the moon, the light that we see is simply a reflection of the light given off by the sun. Like the moon, we should also act as mirrors that reflect God’s light.

In the Exodus 34:29, we read about Moses, as he came down from Mount Sinai:

When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the Testimony in his hands, he was not aware that his face was radiant because he had spoken with the Lord.

To allow the Israelites to speak with Moses, he put a veil over his face so the reflected light of God’s divine presence would not blind the people.

The Apostle Paul uses this story in writing about us as ministers of the Holy Spirit. In 2 Corinthians 3:18, Paul summarizes his argument with these words:

And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

So, as I began, I now repeat my premise:

That which we gaze upon becomes what we reflect to others.

The question that naturally springs to our minds: “How do we do that?”

When we look at God’s written Word, we should pause and consider what we see in the passage we are studying and what we see of God in that passage. We need to look for His face. We need to seek the characteristics that define Him. We need to apprehend what He has revealed to us about Himself.

Once we do this, it becomes easy to worship and spend a longer period of time gazing at Him and His greatness. Then, we have no choice but to trust that God’s Holy Spirit will reflect in our faces the Light of Christ.

Let us seek God’s beauty until we find it. Then, let’s determine to reflect His beauty to others.

 

 

How?

 

How can we sing the songs of the Lord while in a foreign land?

—Psalm 137:4

When we ponder our lives and circumstances, I know that we often ask God this question: “Why?” More often than not, in more recent days, I find myself asking: “How?” How am I supposed to live in this “foreign,” godless culture? What does the Lord expect of me?

Back in the mid-1970’s in his book, How Shall We Then Live? ¹, famous apologist and author, Francis Schaeffer, pondered how Christians could live by the Christian ethic, accept God’s revelation, and totally affirm the Bible’s morals, values, and meaning while living in a declining western culture.

Then, nearly thirty years later, in 1999, another noted writer, Charles Colson, following in the footsteps of Schaeffer, wrote a book pondering the similar question: How Now Shall We Live? ² The decaying culture and the Bible’s enduring message clashed at every turn.

Do Christians still have an important place in this world? Our message seems more and more unrelatable to masses of Americans, particularly younger adults. And, I doubt that the two books I mentioned above, while they might have held answers for the 1970’s and the 1990’s, would be perceived as carrying as sharp a focus for our time in the second decade of the twenty-first century.

Like Jesus suggested to His disciples in Matthew 10—when they were not accepted by those to whom they ministered—some would suggest we should “wipe the dust off our feet” and instead, choose to live in closed Christian communities away from the evil world. Yet, in John 17:15, Jesus prayed:

“… that you [God] not take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one.”

We also sense the urgency of Scripture around the promise that Jesus will return, and that He will come back when the time is right. He gave signs throughout Scripture, including in Matthew 24, which give thoughtful Christians pause as those signs look more and more like our own day. He urges us to “be ready” and to “keep watch.”

As it were, Christians live as exiles in this foreign land, much as the Jews did in Babylon after God allowed the dark days of their captivity to drive them far from their homeland. As recorded in Jeremiah 29, through the prophecy of Jeremiah, the people of Israel learned that God expected them to build houses, settle down, plant gardens, and eat what they produced. They were to raise families and increase in number. They were to seek prosperity and be a blessing to the places where they lived. In other words, God expected His chosen people to do good and look for Him to prosper them.

Today, can we live that way? Can we still live according to God’s written Word? Can we live alien to our culture? Can we shun sin? Can we keep watch for Jesus’ second coming and do good in the world?

God gave us His Holy Spirit for just such an assignment. In John 15, Jesus declares that He is the vine, and we are the branches. He explains the importance of our staying connected to the vine, in the same way that clusters of grapes must remain connected to the grapevine, if they are to grow and mature.

Even though we may experience hardship, Jesus prayed for us in John 17. Jesus asked the Father to protect us and to glorify Him in and through us. He continues to pray for us. Trusting Him, we can put our lives and our pathways into His hands.

I like the verses of the hymn, “God of Grace and God of Glory.” ³ I sometimes recite them as a prayer. Here’s just one verse:

God of grace and God of glory,
on Thy people pour Thy power;
Crown Thine ancient church’s story;
Bring its bud to glorious flower.
Grant us wisdom, grant us courage,
For the facing of this hour,
For the facing of this hour.

______________________

1 Schaeffer, Francis A. How Shall We Then Live? Grand Rapids, Michigan: Fleming H. Revell, 1977.

2 Colson, Charles. W. How Now Shall We Live? Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 1999.

3 Fosdick, Harry Emerson. “God of Grace and God of Glory”—Stanza one. Public Domain.

 

 

Solid

 

I will declare that your love stands firm forever, that you established your faithfulness in heaven itself.

—Psalm 89:2

I remember the day that my mom, my sister, and I walked down our country road to an old house not far away from our farmhouse. No one lived there anymore, so Mom took us for an exploration of the first floor. Once we left that front door on the way out, Mom told us that we were never allowed to again enter that house. The floors not only showed wear, but they were very unsteady and quite unsafe. We could not trust that they would hold us up.

Instead, when we went exploring, my sister and I would stay outside of that house in the yard. In the spring, we picked lilacs and roses off the bedraggled bushes on the outside. Not long after, at least as I recall, the old place mysteriously burned one Halloween. No, we did not start the fire!

That mental picture, from long ago—of shaky floors and a rundown old house—reminds me of a few people I’ve known. These are individuals who promise they will send me this or that, or attend an event to which I invited them, or get me the information I need. Like that old house that has lost its usefulness, these individuals can be expected more often to disappoint than they can be trusted to fulfill their promises.

Thankfully in every way, our God reveals His character as trustworthy, solid, sure, steady, and firm. What He says, He will do. Who He says He is, He is. We can take God at His word. He is fully trustworthy in all circumstances. To depend on Him and His written Word gives us stability in a changing, uncertain world. Into the places He takes us, we can put down our full weight and trust Him.

Not only does God exhibit the traits of never-failing strength, but He also expects us, His people, to exhibit the same character traits. What we say we will do, we must do. What we promise, we must fulfill. What we speak, must always be depended upon as truth.

In Psalm 15, David gives a picture of integrity and shares the characteristics of an ideal worshipper. Of such person, David says, as recorded in Psalm 15:2, 5:

he keeps his oath even when it hurts … He who does these things will never be shaken.

Oh, yes, we stay away from dangerous, shaky floors. They do not stand up to even normal wear, let alone the windstorms of life. Can we be trusted to represent the enduring, true, solid ways of our eternal God? May He give us His grace to do so!