Flying Buttresses from God

 

“Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”

—Galatians 6:2

In a time of collapse, we would do well to have someone on whom to lean. We see this principle at work in the flying buttresses of Gothic Cathedrals. According to Wikipedia:

“… the purpose of any buttress is to resist the lateral forces pushing a wall outwards…” which occurs with the load of heavy stone and glass in the walls of the largest buildings. “Another application of the flying buttress is to prop up a leaning wall in danger of collapse.”

The Apostle Paul was such a “flying buttress,” providing support to the early churches, which he and other apostles founded in the first century. He not only traveled to stay with these young congregations, in order to encourage and help them, but he wrote long letters of instruction to them, so that they would not fail.

In helping to carry the load of these new churches, the Apostle Paul experienced endangering situations, such as shipwrecks, starvation, health problems, beatings, imprisonments, riots, and sleepless nights. In order for his ministry to continue, he knew that, for himslef and his ministry, he needed the buttressing of fellow servants of Christ. He relied on Titus and Timothy, John Mark, and Luke, as well as lesser-known men, such as Tychicus, Epaphroditus, and women, such as Nympha and Priscilla.

The Apostle Paul speaks of the Church as the “Body of Christ,” in which each member belongs to each other member, in order to complete the whole. He admonished the Church in 1 Thessalonians 5:11:

Therefore encourage one another, and build each other up.

This theme occurs often in Paul’s writings. He knew how hard life can become and what spiritual warfare these young Christians would face.

In our present age, we may have days when we don’t feel we can go a step further. Weariness, sickness, emotional pain—along with a too-long waiting for God to answer our prayers—can beat upon us like heavy wind and rain beats on a cathedral in a violent storm. In prayer, we must ask God to supply the buttressing support for us, so that we can keep from collapsing.

God has already prepared a group of fellow Christians to buttress us during our difficult days. When the time of hardship ends, we should seek to have the same grateful spirit that Paul did, when he wrote to Philemon in verse 7:

Your love has given me great joy and encouragement, because you, brother, have refreshed the hearts of the saints.

 

 

The Nobles of Tekoa

 

“The next section [of the wall] was repaired by the men of Tekoa, but their nobles would not put their shoulders to the work under their supervisors. ”

—Nehemiah 3:5

What an exciting time it must have been in the days of Nehemiah. God had moved this man to travel back to his homeland and begin the process of rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem. He had never seen Jerusalem. But, he had heard of the destruction of this city and its walls. The news of this disaster moved Nehemiah to seek permission from King Artaxerxes, his master, to return and give aid to the fallen city.

Nehemiah motivated cooperation and a collegial work ethic among the people. Chapter three of the Book of Nehemiah lists the names of all those who helped on each section of the great wall. Goldsmiths, joined by perfumers, priests, merchants, and temple servants—and even a few women—got busy and zealously worked on the repairs.

However, this curious verse five from the third chapter tells us that the nobles of Tekoa refused to work alongside their fellow Jewish brothers. Fortunately, not all men in positions of importance acted that way. As we read through the chapter, we see that a number of rulers, men of authority, enjoyed the camaraderie, and did what they could to join the work.

Amy Carmichael, referring to this story writes: ¹

In the list of honorable names in chapter 3, there is a little sentence that I am sure the men in question would like to take out of the Bible. But they cannot. They are for ever held up to derision and shame. They lost their chance, the great chance of their lives; it never came again… How glad all the other builders must have been when the wall was joined together; each set of people had done their bit faithfully… And how astonished they would be to hear that their names were written in a Book that would be treasured to the end of time.

Do we have our own nobles of Tekoa? I don’t think we would need to look too far to see people with this attitude in our churches today.

I once heard a woman say, “Oh, I direct choirs, I don’t sing in them!” I also knew a woman who held the position of the children’s ministry team director, who enjoyed chairing meetings, but never actually got to know any of the children of the church.

When we look at Jesus, we see the way that He lived, walking and helping those in need, always serving others. We read His words in Matthew 20:26-28:

Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave—just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

When God calls us to serve, He builds us into a team of His people. While we work in whatever capacity He calls us, He makes sure that we, like the builders in the days of Nehemiah, rejoice to see the work completed and to hear His words to us, “Well done!”

______________________

1 Carmichael, Amy, Thou Givest…They Gather. Fort Washington, PA: Christian Literature Crusade for Dohnavur Fellowship, 1958. p. 132.

 

 

Music in a Hammer

 

“Because you are my help I sing in the shadow of your wings.”

—Psalm 63:7

Maybe you remember the childhood rhyme:

There’s music in a hammer;
There’s music in a nail.
There’s music in a kitty-cat
When you step upon her tail!

How often do we feel struck by a hammer in our lives? What kind of music do we make at such times? Over and over in Scripture, we are reminded that—like our Savior suffered—we will suffer for His sake and for His purposes in our lives.

In Acts 14:22 we read what the early Apostles told their followers:

We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God.

To be clear, that does not mean that our salvation comes to us because of our own patient endurance. No, our salvation comes to us as a precious gift from God, as we acknowledge our belief in God’s atoning sacrifice of His Son, Jesus, on the cross.

When we enter Heaven at last, all serious Christ-followers will be survivors of many trials, tests, and struggles. It’s all part of the sanctification process God guides us through on our way toward spiritual maturity. The product of our surrender to the “hammer” of God’s work comes alive in the “song” we sing while we suffer.

The story of Paul and Silas, recorded in Acts 16, tells of their beating, flogging, and imprisonment. We read these words in Acts 16:25:

About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God.

They rejoiced in God’s will, not knowing whether they would live or die.

From the pen of a Puritan writer we read: ¹

The greatest temptation out of hell is to live without trials. A pool of standing water will turn stagnant …Grace withers without adversity. You can’t sneak quietly into heaven without a cross. Crosses form us into his image. They cut away the pieces of our corruption. Lord cut, carve, wound; Lord do anything to perfect your image in us and make us fit for glory.

But, what of the hammer? Isaiah 44:12 tells us:

The blacksmith takes a tool and works with it in the coals; he shapes an idol with hammers, he forges it with the might of his arm.

Our God plays the blacksmith to forge us into His shape. Jeremiah 23:9 states:

“Is not my word like fire,” declares the Lord, “and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces?

Sometimes God’s hammer comes to us through the striking truth of His Word.

Has God ever convicted you of sin so sharply and painfully that you could not rest in your spirit until you confessed and made that right? God still uses the hammer on His people with the hopeful result that, when we arrive to meet Him, we can say with the Puritan: ²

O what I owe to the file, hammer, and furnace!

And not only does He desire us to suffer for His sake, but to sing under the weight of the trials that He might be glorified in us!

______________________

1 From “The Loveliness of Christ” by Samuel Rutherford, as quoted in Rushing, Richard, editor. Voices from the Past. Carlisle, PA: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2009. p. 261. 2 Ibid.

 

 

Don't Gulp Your Food!

 

“How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!”

—Psalm 119:103

I can still hear my father’s admonition at the dinner table: “Chew your food!” I suppose I might have felt the urgent need to finish the meal in order to get back to playing with my sister, or riding my bike, or any dozens of other favorite pastimes I enjoyed as a child. But, gulping down my food was simply not acceptable.

Some forty years later, I heard a pastor, on the verge of retirement, talking about the ways he needed to intensify the taste of God’s written Word as he got older. He shared the premise that when our taste buds are young, we have a much more discriminating pallet even for mild flavors. He likened that to a child’s ability to remember new facts, new songs, new poetry, and new verses of Scripture with much more ease than an older person is able to do so.

When this pastor was young, he told us, he enjoyed just about any flavor of jelly on his toast. But, when he got older, he needed stronger, more intense flavors to satisfy his taste. He said that, as an older Christian, in order to remember Scripture passages like he did as a child, he needed more intense practices in his devotional life.

This pastor particularly enjoyed memorizing Scripture. He urged his congregation to learn to appreciate God’s written Word by intensifying their enjoyment of it through this practice of memorization. Memorizing passages from the Bible does indeed help cement the words of truth in one’s mind and heart.

Not only do we need more intense means to learn and remember Scripture as older adults, but we also need the practice of savoring what we read. Gulping down large portions of Bible books may bring some degree of growth. But, I believe that slowing down, savoring, and delighting in what we read intensifies our experience like nothing else can do.

How can we enjoy the Scriptures in this way? Certainly, we can memorize portions of it. We can also write verses in our prayer journals that God points out to us. We can paraphrase portions of Scripture that God is using to teach us. We can find hymns that capture the idea of certain Scripture readings. We can meditate over the images we read about.

All of these practices should have the effect of helping us say with the Psalmist in Psalm 34:8:

Taste and see that the Lord is good.

Let us determine to learn to enjoy feeding on Scripture one bite at a time. And remember: “Don’t gulp your food!”