Be Still And Know

Hebrews 4.16 NLT 'Let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.' I have only spoken with the Queen on one occasion. I had attended a reception at Buckingham Palace to celebrate her Diamond Jubilee and afterwards there were refreshments. I was chatting with a couple of friends and suddenly saw the Queen approaching us. As I was facing her, it became clear that I was the person who needed to speak first and I anxiously tried to call to mind the correct way of addressing her. She then asked various kind questions and I felt frankly overwhelmed. I had never imagined that I would actually get to speak with her. However, as the Queen herself would gladly acknowledge, our God is of infinitely greater power and significance and yet in our verse today we are told that we can enter his presence with boldness. This is an almost incredible word to use. How can we as weak and unholy human beings possibly come boldly into the p

Hebrews 4.12 NLT 'For the word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires.' If you thought that the Bible was just another piece of literature you have totally missed the point. The Bible is the way in which God speaks to us and he does it with devastating power. It can, and frequently does, turn people’s lives upside down. Through it, God is able to speak to the deepest places of our lives and can bring us forgiveness and renewal. It is the most exciting library of books imaginable. When I was a student one of my real fears was that through studying the Bible in depth and then ministering week by week, the Bible would lose its wonder and power for me. I would like to report that the exact opposite has happened. Through the decades the Bible has become more brilliant, exciting and powerful and I enjoy studying it more now than at any time in my life. Why? Because the Bib

Hebrews 3.13 NLT 'You must warn each other every day, while it is still “today,” so that none of you will be deceived by sin and hardened against God.' I still vividly remember the warnings that my mother used to give me when I was a child. They had to do with what I ate, how I crossed the road, the people I spoke to, the way I cycled my bike and so on. I suspect that we all have similar memories. And the reason we were given all those warnings was because we were loved. If our parents or carers hadn’t been bothered about our safety and well-being they would have kept quiet. The warnings weren’t always welcome, but they were good for us and I am sure that we all look back with gratitude for them. In today’s verse, the writer is encouraging his readers to keep on warning one another. He is conscious of how easily they could slip away from the Christian faith, and he doesn’t want them to go the same way as the Israelites in their wilderness wanderings. Time and again they had refused to listen to God’s word

Hebrews 3.6 NLT 'Christ, as the Son, is in charge of God’s entire house. And we are God’s house, if we keep our courage and remain confident in our hope in Christ.' Confidence is important in every part of life isn’t it? I find it interesting that many people who are supremely confident in one area of life have no, or very little confidence, in another. We can probably all think of an area where we don’t feel confident, but here the writer speaks about an area in which we all need to be confident and that is our faith. The word he used here for confidence is sometimes translated by the word boldness. He knew that as we look to the future we all need to be strong in faith. Everything depends upon it. Here the writer talks about being confident in our hope in Christ. Hope is a very important concept in the New Testament and we need to make sure that we are understanding the word in a very different way from normal life. Donald Coggan, a former Archbishop of Canterbury, once described the word hope as we use

Hebrews 2.18 NLT 'Since Jesus himself has gone through suffering and testing, he is able to help us when we are being tested.' For many years I have suffered from back pain. That means that I have much in common with the majority of you because we are told that 60 to 70 percent of people have back pain at some point in their lives. I find that people are very caring and sympathetic but there is all the difference in the world between those who are kindly sympathising but have never had back pain, and those who have. I am, of course, grateful for anyone’s kindness but when it is clear that the person I am speaking to understands my experience it is such a blessing. Here in Hebrews the writer is keen to show that Jesus really understands the challenges that we face in life because he himself went through suffering and testing. Later in this letter the writer makes it clear that the church had suffered terribly for the faith. It must have been so difficult for this group of relatively new Christians to have suff

Hebrews 2:14 NLT Because God’s children are human beings—made of flesh and blood—the Son also became flesh and blood. For only as a human being could he die, and only by dying could he break the power of the devil, who had the power of death. The fact that Jesus was fully human was of crucial importance to the writer of this  letter. Salvation depended upon it. In the first chapter, the writer spoke of the fact  that Jesus was the divine Son of God, and that he shared fully in the creation of the universe with God his Father. And now he wanted to explain that Jesus was also fully human which meant that, in common with every other human being, he experienced death and this enabled him to break the power of the devil, who had the power of death. Through the centuries many people have struggled with the idea of Jesus’ humanity. This was a particular problem in the Greek world where gods were seen as being completely detached from this world. The idea of a god becoming human was nonsensical. All sorts of differe

Hebrews 2:1 NLT So we must listen very carefully to the truth we have heard, or we may drift away from it. We can be sure that this letter was written to Christians from a Jewish background and that it was written to a particular church. Later in the letter we learn that the believers had suffered for their faith soon after they came to faith in Christ, but now they had become complacent and lazy. There was a real danger that they would drift away from the truth. The expression “drift away” is one that is well known in Greek literature and it is used to refer to a ring slipping off the finger, or some food slipping down the wrong way or a ship carelessly slipping past a harbour because the person at the wheel wasn’t paying attention. The writer wants the congregation to realise that in just the same way it is possible to drift away in  their faith.  In my experience when people stop attending church it is rarely because they have come to a conviction that Christianity is wrong. What has happened is that they

Hebrews 1:3 NLT The Son radiates God’s own glory and expresses the very character of God, and he sustains everything by the mighty power of his command. When he had cleansed us from our sins, he sat down in the place of honour at the right hand of the majestic God in heaven. As you probably know, we don’t have any of the original manuscripts of the New Testament. But we do have many very early copies and on a number of them this letter is titled “to the Hebrews”. There can be no doubt that this important letter was written specifically for Christians who had a Jewish background. The writer  wanted them to realise that Jesus was the perfect fulfilment of everything that they had heard about in their Old Testament Scriptures. Jesus revealed the very character of God and so, having been present with his Father in creation, he was able to sustain everything by his command. Then having made the perfect sacrifice of himself on the cross, he was able to return to the right hand of his Father in Heaven. In short, th

Hebrews 1:1-2 NLT Long ago God spoke many times and in many ways to our ancestors through the prophets. And now in these final days, he has spoken to us through his Son. God promised everything to the Son as an inheritance, and through the Son he created the universe.   These opening verses of the letter to the Hebrews declare that God has always spoken to people. He did it in the Old Testament as he spoke through the prophets and then in the New Testament through his Son, Jesus. It is good for us  to stop for a moment and reflect that he didn’t have to speak. He could have  chosen to create humankind and leave us alone. He could well have looked at  what a mess people made of the world and decided to remain silent. But he  didn’t. His choice was to communicate and before launching into this wonderful  letter we should stop for a moment and praise God that his desire is to  communicate with us. In the Old Testament God spoke many times and in many ways through the  prophets. Often the communication was in th

Jonah 3.10 and 4.1 NLT 'When God saw what they had done and how they had put a stop to their evil ways, he changed his mind and did not carry out the destruction he had threatened. This change of plans greatly upset Jonah, and he became very angry.' So far as Jonah was concerned it was bad enough to have to go to Nineveh at all, with its terrible reputation for sin. But at least he was given the responsibility for sharing a message of God’s judgement upon them. They certainly deserved it. But the result of his preaching was not what he had expected. To his great surprise the people repented and, in consequence, God changed his mind about destroying the people. This was all too much for Jonah who became extremely angry with God. These evil people needed, in Jonah’s view, to be blasted off the planet and not to be offered forgiveness. Jonah reflected that he ought to have remembered that God was “a merciful and compassionate God, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love.” (Jonah 4.2) Jonah’s reactio

Jonah 3.1-3 NLT Then the Lord spoke to Jonah a second time: “Get up and go to the great city of Nineveh, and deliver the message I have given you.” This time Jonah obeyed the Lord’s command and went to Nineveh, a city so large that it took three days to see it all. Jonah had learnt his lesson. He had tried running away from God and spectacularly failed in the attempt, and so when the Lord called him for a second time he obeyed and went. The task before him was colossal. Nineveh stood at the heart of the great Assyrian empire and had a population of more than 120,000 people, about twice the size of Babylon. It was one of the biggest cities in the world at the time, occupying a strategically important location on both north-south and east-west trade routes. Today it forms part of the large city of Mosul in Iraq. Nineveh was the last place on earth that Jonah would have chosen to be, but that’s where God wanted him. The Bible introduces us to many people who were led by God to places where they didn’t want t

Jonah 2.1-2 NLT Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from inside the fish. He said, “I cried out to the Lord in my great trouble, and he answered me. I called to you from the land of the dead, and Lord, you heard me!” The thought of spending three days and nights inside a large fish is well beyond my imagination. And the book of Jonah doesn’t do anything to satisfy our curiosity! This is no newspaper account of exactly what it looks and feels like to be swallowed by an enormous fish. This is the story of a man meeting with God at a time of extreme need. Jonah’s words echo many of the Psalms and reveal his sense of despair and abandonment. Life seemed to have come to a shuddering conclusion but, amidst his confusion, he cried to God and God heard him. God had not abandoned him, but was ready to hear his cries. Jonah had walked the path of disobedience and now, in the belly of the fish, he needed to set off in a new direction. Jonah’s situation reminds us of the Parable of the Prodigal Son. Just li

Jonah 1.1-3 NLT The Lord gave this message to Jonah son of Amittai: “Get up and go to the great city of Nineveh. Announce my judgment against it because I have seen how wicked its people are.” But Jonah got up and went in the opposite direction to get away from the Lord. Most Bibles will have the title “Holy Bible” on the cover and that could easily give the impression that it is a book stacked full of stories of really holy people. The sort of people who never take a step out of line, and who go around being real goody goodies from morning till night. It is surely a relief to us all that the Bible is nothing like that. At times it feels like the complete opposite of such a book! Jonah is a classic example. He is called by God and he is appalled by God’s command. Going to Nineveh was absolutely the last thing that he would ever want to do. The city was, at the time, one of the largest cities in the world and was famous for its sin. It stood at the heart of the great and menacing Assyrian Empire and everyt

Proverbs 20.29 NLT 'The glory of the young is their strength; the grey hair of experience is the splendour of the old.' Tension between the generations is not new. Aristotle in the 4th century BC once commented, “When I look at the younger generation, I despair of the future of civilisation.” Long after Aristotle’s day, in the year 1237, a monk named Peter gave his reasons for despair when he looked at the youth of his day. He wrote, “The young people of today think of nothing but themselves. They have no reverence for parents or old age. They are impatient of all restraint. They talk as if they know everything, and what passes for wisdom with us is foolishness to them.” The truth is that in every age there is a huge gulf between the generations and today’s proverb encourages us to look for the strengths of each age group. Everyone has something special to contribute. The young are unquestionably stronger than older people, andI ABS grey hair is a clear sign that the old have more experience of life than

Proverbs 20.20 NLT 'If you insult your father or mother, your light will be snuffed out in total darkness.' Family relationships were of central concern to the writer of Proverbs. The incredibly harsh language that he uses in this particular proverb shows his complete contempt for those who insulted their parents. No punishment was too great for those who were able to sink to such depths. Later in Proverbs the writer speaks with even greater passion, “The eye that mocks a father and despises a mother’s instructions will be plucked out by ravens of the valley and eaten by vultures.” Proverbs 30.17 The whole Bible speaks with one voice on this subject and it is not surprising that honouring parents was one of the Ten Commandments, standing alongside the commands not to murder, commit adultery or steal. All family relationships will be strained at times, but nothing can change our fundamental responsibility for our parents. The commandment is followed by the promise that if you honour your father and mother,

Proverbs 19.28 NLT 'A corrupt witness makes a mockery of justice; the mouth of the wicked gulps down evil.' Justice is a persistent theme throughout the Bible, because it is one of the characteristics of God. He loves justice. This is beautifully described in Deuteronomy 32.4 “He is the Rock; his deeds are perfect. Everything he does is just and fair. He is a faithful God who does no wrong; how just and upright he is!” It is because of God’s love of justice that he gave his people a very clear framework of rules. The first five books of the Bible, the Pentateuch, gave the Israelites the law which would guide every aspect of their lives. There were rules about the way in which they worshipped but also about their relationships with one another and rules of hygiene. God is interested in every part of life and so the rules were comprehensive. The Bible is clear that justice is fragile and needs to be carefully looked after. It can easily be perverted. The prophets showed particular concern about the evil of

Proverbs 19.18 NLT 'Discipline your children while there is hope. Otherwise you will ruin their lives.' The word discipline has a harsh ring to it, but the writer of the Proverbs is clear that it is absolutely essential for every parent to know how to do it. He saw discipline as the way in which parents show love to their children. In chapter 22 verse 6 he wrote, “Direct your children on to the right path, and when they are older, they will not leave it.” His many references to use of the rod suggest that the methods of disciplining have changed considerably, but the principle of discipline holds good. Every child needs to have the security of knowing what the rules are, and someone who will ensure that they are followed. A failure to put in place clear boundaries is, in the opinion of the writer, a sign of hatred towards children. I remember talking with a friend about his teenage years. His parents allowed him to do whatever he wanted and he thought this was great. It stood in marked contrast to those a

Proverbs 18.4 NLT 'Wise words are like deep waters; wisdom flows from the wise like a bubbling brook.' If you look at the history of many villages or towns you will find that they originally grew up because they were close to a river, brook or spring. The source of water gave them life and here Proverbs says that it is just the same with wisdom. Wisdom brings life wherever it goes and so wise people will centre their lives on it. I love the straightforwardness of the writer who sees a sharp distinction between wisdom and foolishness, life and death. Fools live a life that is firmly built on laziness and selfishness, and everything they do ends in disaster. But wise people, whose life is built on a reverence for God, will live a life that is characterised by love, understanding and generosity. Who then are the people whose wisdom will invigorate and strengthen us as we live for God? We all need to seek them out! They are not necessarily people with great knowledge, but they are people who know God well. Th

Proverbs 17.5 NLT 'Those who mock the poor insult their Maker; those who rejoice at the misfortune of others will be punished.' Every society has poor people and Jesus affirmed that that would always be the case. But that doesn’t mean that we should be unconcerned for the poor. The whole Bible encourages us to take the needs of the poor seriously and do everything we can to support them. Leviticus gave some very practical advice to ensure that the poor were helped. “When you harvest the crops of your land, do not harvest the grain along the edges of your fields, and do not pick up what the harvesters drop. It is the same with your grape crop—do not strip every last bunch of grapes from the vines, and do not pick up the grapes that fall to the ground. Leave them for the poor and the foreigners living among you. I am the Lord your God.” (Leviticus 19.9-10) Our verse is particularly concerned about those who look down on the poor and who even mock them. This isn’t merely rude but an insult to God who will en

Proverbs 17.4 NLT 'Wrongdoers eagerly listen to gossip; liars pay close attention to slander.' The Book of Proverbs was written more than 2,500 years ago, but the issues that it tackles are so up to date that you could imagine it was written yesterday! Today’s verse reminds us that there have always been gossips. There are many references to gossips in Proverbs and it is clear that the writer is deeply disturbed about their power to destroy relationships and make life miserable. Of course, everyone understands the magnetic power of juicy gossip. In Proverbs 18.8 NIV we read, “The words of a gossip are like choice morsels; they go down to the inmost parts.” The whole process of gossip is enticing. The gossip may draw you in by telling you that they haven’t told anyone else this piece of information. It’s because of your special relationship that they are giving you this privileged information. The gossip then shares their news in as dramatic a way as possible, and you are hooked. It’s a dangerous process,