Thought for the Day 09/06/21 - The (happy) tale of the prophet with a problem ...

 Click here for AUDIO

You expect a prophet to be telling the future or telling people off, really, don't you?

A prophecy is really supposed to be about OTHER people ... but the prophet Habakkuk, writing in the mid-to late 7th century BC, has got a personal problem with God and he airs it quite freely in his book.

Habakkuk's unusual prophecy looks like a tale of a spiritual journey, which goes both into and through a common sort of problem people have with God. 

Habakkuk's problem

Habakkuk can't cope with the evil he sees in the world and a God Habakkuk thinks is doing nothing about it.

But Habakkuk does the RIGHT thing with his problem, and this book of the prophet Habakkuk is more of the chrobicle of a spiritual journey, showing us what Habakkuk learned as he aired this common challenge to faith before God.

When Habbakuk has a problem with God he takes it to God, and that's what the book of this prophet goes straight into.

Habakkuk's first complaint

Habakkuk unpacks his first complaint, that in the light of the injustice and violence of his society and the inability or unwillingness of the corrupt legal system to deal with it, God seems to be doing nothing at all!

"How long, Lord, must I call for help,

    but you do not listen?"

Habakkuk 1:2

That's Habakkuk's FIRST complaint.

Notice, Habakkuk isn't making this complaint ABOUT God, but TO God.

That's the difference between godless rebellion and godly lament.

God will deal with lament but He won't deal with rebellion in anything like the same way at all.

So God hears the prophet's complaint and comes straight back to Habakkuk in this unusual of prophecies.

God's first response

God doesn't argue against what Habbakuk is saying at all, but He tells Habbakuk what He's going to do about it.

Now, we can't always rely on a thorough answer like this ... sometimes I suspect we're not strong enough for it ... but God is REALLY teaching Habakkuk a lesson here!

God tells Habakkuk that He is going to bring a 

• far more violent 
  
  
• far more unjust and 
  
  
• far more corrupt nation 

as His agents of judgement to give Habbakuk's people a taste of their own medicine.

Habbakuk is HORRIFIED at the thought of the justice he has called for and launches straight into His second complaint against God.

Habbakuk's second complaint

Habbakuk had complained against God for NOT actoing against the injustice of his world, but when God told Habbakuk what He WAS doing about it ... Habakkuk immediately complained against God's jusgement!

How OFTEN have I come across people like this?

They complain God doesn't DEAL with sin, and then He does they complain against God judging it!

God's second response

God's second response is to tell Habakkuk to get some tablets of stone and a chisel and carve the five woes God speaks against the evil's Habbakuk sees onto those tablets as a portable permanent record that can travel with the Israelites as God does what He says he'd do about the problem Habakkuk initially aired with Him.

That second response from God contains five 'woes' or curses for covenant-breaking against the wayward people and rulers of Israel.

God anathematises roundly 

the rigged borrowing system that exploits the poor, 

the way the power of private wealth gets exercised making the rich richer at the expense of the poor, 

slave labour, 

the abuse of alcohol by irresponsible leaders and 

idolatry which corrupts value systems and leads to all the other abuses in their society.

We have far too many of those things contextualised but present in our own.

The last chapter of the book tells the tale of Habakkuk's ensuing face-time with God.

Head-to-heading with God brings more than Habakkuk  bargained for 

So far this book's been about the problem of evil in the world, while God is appearing to do nothing.

Now it becomes a matter of meeting with God, and theology dwarfs theodicy out of existence.

Meeting the Holy One melts the accusation of His apparent injustice. 

He is TANGIBLY holy and good. Habakkuk comes to the point where he might not understand, but He knows the God Whose goodness lies behind it all, and know he trusts Him. 

The point

Habbakuk has been deeply troubled by taking God's business upon himself ... as if HE should be the arbiter of God's actions.

But meeting the Holy One of Israel and hearing Him speak DEALT with Habakkuk's assumption of God's injustice.

And Habakkuk's previously anguished life is transormed by that fundamental re-orientation.

Here's the Verse for the Day:

"The Sovereign Lord is my strength;

    he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
    he enables me to tread on the heights."

                                   Habakkuk 3:19

Now THAT's a very different story to the one we started with!

Habbakuk has lamented then met with God about his issue.

But it's meeting with and relating to God in his lament that transforms the issue, and the life-experience of the prophet.

Worries about theodicy are swallowed up in theology!

The Takeaway

Never be afraid to pour your heart out to the Lord, in Whom you trust.

Fear, rather, NOT to take your problems to Him.

But bear in mind that it is, on a number of occasions in Scripture, ultimately meeting God Himself, not understanding His reasoning, that brings the change in our situation about.

Here Habakkuk describes the effect of this.

And it is this that brings Habakkuk from dragging his feet through this world to dancing his way onwards  like a deer.

 

If we can pray about anything with you, please feel free to contact us using the contact form below

Thought for the Day 08/06/21 - sowing weeping: reaping leaping?

 Click here for AUDIO

Last May we worked really hard here preparing a field to re-seed a worn out old parcel of pasture. 

Hours of work and a reasonable amount of diesel went into it.

And then we sowed good seed onto the prepared soil.

And there followed the driest spring in living memory!

The seed was in the ground. The soil temperature was WELL up. The moisture needed for it to germinate was not ... and the results we had were very poor. 

Now, in fairness, the clover in the seed mix did really well as soon as the rain eventually came, but the fancy hybrid ryegrass in the mix virtually failed and the field really needs doing again, to be honest. 

But it's always a risk when you sow seed. 

We've held back so far on re-seeding that field this year, because the old types of grass that have survived there for (probably) centuries under our tough conditions have regenerated and have turned the place green again. They're not fancy ... but they don't give up on us!

It all goes to show that sowing seed is a risky business. There are a LOT of variables involved and you can't - as a mere human being - control them all. Sowing seed always feels like a risk.

It feels like a risk

But just IMAGINE the risk for people reliant on their subsistence farming for their food, who have possibly been eking out their supplies of grain from a poor harvest the previous year and who now, with rumbling stomachs and disturbing thoughts of their children's future have put some of the precious remaining store of seed into a leather pouch and are scattering it onto the dry earth they have sweat hard to turn and prepare ... throwing the seed that would sustain their life onto the ground outside, in hope .

In ancient Israel no rain fell on the land from May to September. 

The 'former rain' fell late November to early December, usually. It should be enough to get the seed to germinate. 

Then things tended to dry off again until the latter rain fell in March and April to fill the ear and make the crop fruitful.

It involved an awful lot of watching, waiting and trust!

Which brings us to our Verse for the Day:

"Those who shed tears as they plant

will shout for joy when they reap the harvest."

                                       Psalm 126:5

O. Borowski in his book on Agriculture in Iron Age Israel (p.54) says about this passage: 

“The dependence on rain for watering plants, the uncertainty of the quantity and timing of the rains, and the possibility of crop failure due to pests and diseases appear to have kept the farmer in a gloomy mood during sowing”  

Perhaps the people were experiencing a literal drought, the effects of which caused them to lament their plight as they plant their seed in hopes that the rain would come. 

However, most of the language is probably metaphorical in this psalm. 

Like a farmer sowing his seed, the covenant community was enduring hardship as they waited for a new outpouring of divine blessing. 

Yet they are confident that a time of restoration will come and relieve their anxiety, just as the harvest brings relief and joy to the farmer.

What about failed harvests?

Well, firstly, the psalm isnt talking about how good harvests are going to be the only thing people experience ... but it is talking about the usual situation where seed time gets followed by harvest.

It's also the case, of course, that the Old Covenant community of God's people had been assured by the stipulations of THEIR covenant with God that if they walked with Him then He, their faithful Patron, would in one way and another take care of His people's needs in general.

The people in this Psalm are referring - as they go up to Jreusalem joyfully to worship God - to their confidence in the safe-keeping of God which they enjoy, however their circumstances are looking, and however those circumstances are calling for faith in Him and faithfulness at that particular point in  time.

The Point

God’s people were quite possibly experiencing a “dry season” after a time of past blessing, as they went up to Jerusalem to worship God at one of the great festivals.

It can be hard to worship God when things are not quite the way we'd like them to be.

But as these people go up to worship, they pray here in v. 4 of this Psalm for a “flash flood” of their Sovereign Protector's renewed blessing.

And then in verses five and six they express their confidence that their God will support those who (possibly like them at this point in time) are metaphorically sowing their seed of worship in the assurance of their faith (not their 'sight') that God honours their faithfulness and will certainly pour out the blessing they long for.

The Takeaway

This verse is an expression of confidence in God by people who continue to go to worship Him even though things are not currently all as they would wish.

They are living in the light of the sort of assurance that God gives in Malachi 3:10

“Bring the entire tithe into the storehouse so that there may be food in my temple. 

Test me in this matter,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, “to see if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out blessing for you until there is no room for it all. 

Then I will

• stop the plague from ruining your crops,
  
  
• and the vine will not lose its fruit before harvest,” 

says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies."

There's the takeaway.

This verse in this psalm challenges us by it's strong assurance that we should continue to worship God faithfully in the tough times, because the faithful One will pour out His blessing on the faith of His people who persevere faithfully through such trials.

Let us know using the contact form below so we can pray for you if that's proving tough for you at the moment.

Thought for the Day 07/06/21 - HEART trouble

 Click here for AUDIO

When we talk about the heart these days, we're usually on the subject of affairs of the heart ... romantic entanglements and things like that.

Oh yes ... trouble is sometimes too small a word for what can happen there!

It's included of course, but that's not totally what our Verse for the Day in Ezekiel 36 is talking about.

You see, the thing is, when the Bible talks about the heart it refers to our innermost thoughts that define who and what we are, our character and our personailty

Your heart defines you.

And that can be bad news!

You won't have lived long if you don't realise that just going along with the stuff you find in your heart can get you into more than a small spot of bother!

In fact, when Jesus lists the sort of things that come out of a person's heart ... let's just say it's not at all a very pretty picture!

"What comes out of a person is what defiles them. 

For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come – 

sexual immorality, theft, murder, 

adultery, greed, malice, deceit, 

lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. 

All these evils come from inside and defile a person."

                                                        Mark 7:20-21

There's a whole WORLD of pain you don't want, right there!

How do you change a person's heart?

We might think we would be able to restrain or modify a person's outbursts ... or our own ...  by tying them up and gagging them.

But unless you change the heart that person isn't going to change.

This is where God's plan of salvation comes in.

It is as if the Old Covenant with its law and regulations demonstrates how it is impossible to change what comes out of a person ... out of their heart ... by just tying them up!

No ... our problem with the things we think, say and do doesn't lie in our lack of restraint but has its roots at the point where these things arise in the first place, in the well-spring of our human hearts.

Ever since the time of Noah and the Flood the Lord has made it clear that the human heart is the source of the human problem:

Genesis 6:5 "the Lord saw that 

• the wickedness of humankind had become great on the earth. 
  
  
• Every 
  
  
• inclination of the 
  
  
• thoughts of their 
  
  
• minds was 
  
  
• only evil 
  
  
• all the time."

It's a heart problem, it's a total problem, it's a big problem and it's a constant problem, says Genesis 6!

But hang on, now ...

There is heart-changing Hope!

The Good News is that centuries in advance God had a plan to act on this pervasive human problem, and that He did so in the person of Jesus Christ who transforms people through His life, death and resurrection, from the inside out.

How does He transform people?

Well, the problem lies at the core of our being , so that's where He works out the solution. And He does that by transforming ... almost transplanting you could say ...  the human heart.

When a person turns from sin tof ollow Christ they put their trust in Him to do this thing for them ... to transform them from the inside out by giving them a NEW heart.

According to oiur Verse for the Day today, our walk with God starts with a profound reorientation of personality that can be described (just as it is here in Ezekiel's prophecy) as a 'heart transplant'

What's 'a heart of stone'?

Well, it's a heart that symbolizes a will that is stubborn and unresponsive to God (see 1 Samuel 25:37). 

In fact, in Jewish Rabbinic literature a “stone” was associated with an evil inclination (b. Sukkah 52a)

What's 'a heart of flesh'?

That's, a heart that symbolizes a will that is changed, and is now responsive and obedient to God.

So from WAY back, God planned an innermost 'Heart Transplant'..

But that brings us to the turning point issue ...

The issue of 'Patient Consent'

The power to change hearts and lives comes from the Holy Spirit (John 6:63) through the Word of God (2 Timothy 3:16-17) and is brought about as we spend time in God's presence ... they call it 'prayer' (James 5:16-20)

We can't change our heart nor anybody else's like this, but through the message of Christ and His salvation people CAN be set free from the enslaving power of sin (which explainswhy you keep on doing what you wish you didn't) and that is what Romans 6 is all about!)

Our part according to Hebrews 3 is this ... and bear in mind what's being said here is not being simply said to an individual but to the community of faith ... 

"See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. 

But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called ‘Today’, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness."

                                                          Hebrews 3:12

Hebrews there gets to the core of what is meant by patient consent in this case.

The Point

The heart of the human problem has long been and still remains to be the problem of the human heart.

We feel the pain of situations caused by others' wayward hearts, and both the pain and frustration of situations caused by our own wayward hearts.

But God in sheer mercy and grace has paid a high personal price to deal with this problem ... and stands (as it were) at the end of our hospital bed with a clipboard seeking the patient's consent.

And the Lord Himself stands there not as a long-suffering psychologist, but as a radical heart-transplant surgeon!

The Takeaway

How should I look to the truth of 

1. the Word of God and 
   
   
2.  the power of the Holy Spirit today, 

in order to 

1. help others change and 
   
   
2.  to make the change I need to make in my own new, tenderised heart?

Thought for the Day 04/06/21 - Cover-up?

Click here for AUDIO

This week President Biden seems to have given fresh legs to the allegation of a COVID cover-up by China.

Now, I really have no idea about this.

There are clever people who have said that the virus has features that indicate it is definitely an engineered virus, and there are also experts who have reported that it does not.

There are apparently knowledgeable insider-accounts saying that the Wuhan lab was operating without due care and there are WHO reports saying this wasn't a problem.

If you are having problems filling your time, just pop 'COVID cover-up' into Google and you won't find yourself short of reading material!

What's going on?

As far as the origin of the virus is concerned, I really don't know!

But there seems to be a popular awareness that people tend to want cover up their mistakes ... removing any mention of them from public space ... and nothing seems to feed conspiracy theories more effectively than that!

From that first time when Adam took the forbidden fruit in the Garden right up to the present, humanity seems to display an absolute gift for finding strategies to avoid being blamed, while avoiding the simplest solution of just owning up!

But we all have this same tendency within us and know it's what happens.

We're aware of it ... which seems to defeat the object of the attempt before it even takes off!

So how do we deal with this?

Well, obviously, covering things up 

- our natural instinct - 

isn't really going to solve any problem.

How can we effectively deal with this, then?

What it takes - honesty

The wise one who wrote Proverbs puts it plainly for us:

"When the righteous triumph, there is great elation, 

but when the wicked rise to power, people go into hiding.      

but whoever hardens their heart falls into trouble.

Whoever conceals their sins does not prosper, 

but the one who confesses and renounces them finds mercy.

Blessed is the one who always trembles before God,

    but whoever hardens their heart falls into trouble."

                                                      Proverbs 28:12-14

'Not me, boss!'?

Fundamentally, Jesus Christ came into the world to save people from their sins with the very clear message that those who think they are not sick don't need a doctor and therefore won't get one: 

" On hearing this, Jesus said to them, 

‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, 

but those who are ill. 

I have not come to call the righteous, 

but sinners.’" 

                                          Mark 2:17

But the trouble with such honesty and openness is that it is only safe if there is also honest mercy to accompany it!

Who is going to be keen to subject themselves to what the self-righteous and the pharisees of our modern world will do to you if you ARE that open with them?

What it takes - honest mercy

The child who knows they are loved is much more likely to be honest with their parents than the one who is used to being treated harshly, and the same holds true in any human relationship.

You're not going to cope psychologically with coming to terms with your failures wiithout grace being shown to you by the person you've wronged and been honest with.

Some people are not going to grant that to you.

But Biblically (as the psalmist writes in Psalm 51:4), whilst our sin does affect other people it is fundamentally against God, and He stands ready to totally deal with our sin and our failures, one way or the other.

What it takes from us - a commitment to integrity

In the words of our Verse for the Day:

So ... to fight the good fight Paul teaches Timothy he must:

• hold firmly to faith and 
  
  
• a good conscience

The Point

It's by means of God's grace shown to faith that Timothy (like all believers) was put right with God.

But what does Paul mean by keeping a good conscience?

Biblically there is no WAY that can mean putting on an outward facade to hide sin behind.

No ... the person who conceals their sin like that will NOT prosper!

But the person who confesses and renounces it finds mercy. 

Aha!

There y'go!

The way to keep a good conscience is to keep opening up about our failures, renouncing our sin and finding mercy FROM GOD!

The Takeaway

A quote from J.D. Greear came to me today by a roundabout route on social media:

"If you expose your sin, Jesus will cover it.

If you cover your sin, He will expose it."

It's wise to keep short accounts with God ... no '90-day invoices'!

Keeping short accounts with God will mean that I am daily confessing my known sins to my merciful Father, but it also means that I will be daily bathing in the glories of His grace!

Thought for the Day 03/06/21 - Rock. Not paper. Not scissors.

Click here for AUDIO

'Rock' is a funny old word, don't you think?

It can mean SO many different things in different contexts ... heavy metal music, a rod of sweet sticky stuff you buy at the beach, to sway rhythmically back and forth, a diamond or other gem, to wear a garment well ('she really ROCKED that look!'), to be deeply shocked ... and of course, there's the use of the word that actually refers to a piece of geology.

Of course, the word seems to have started out in life as a geological reference, but it came to mean so many different things in different contexts after that.

It even became a popular meaphorical way to speak of God!

In Psalm 18, David celebrates the way that the Lord upheld him whilst he maintained a faithful response, insisting on not taking things into his own hands, during a really trying time in his own life.

There are close parallels between this psalm and 2 Samuel 22 (a historical account) after God finally gave David the Kingship that he'd long been anointed for ... all in spite of the strong opposition of his predecessor, king Saul.

Not taking matters into his own hands

But the key thing in all of this is that David - having been promised the Kingship by God, and persecuted ferociously by Saul - didn't try to take things into his own hands but rested on God to both protect David and bring His promises to fruition.

And it was in celebrating the fruit of waiting patiently for God to fulfil His purposes that David, the psalmist, wrote his song:

"The Lord is my rock, 

my fortress and my deliverer; 

my God is my rock, 

in whom I take refuge, 

my shield and the horn of my salvation, 

my stronghold."

                             Psalm 18:2 

The Point

The thing about a stronghold and a fortress is that they are the safe place that you go into and wait for deliverance from the attacker and from the enemy.

Going for paper and scissors in that childhood game always looked to me like wanting to rush the job. Rock is strong, steady and constant ... 

no sign of temporary expedients or of hurrying things.

How hard do you find it to wait?

I find 'Wait!' to be the most difficult of all the Lord's commands to obey!

But if you discipline yourself to trust Him, that puts a different perspective on things ... and recolours the picture altogether.

David's psalm becomes a celebration of the safety of trusting God as your stable and securing rock and safe place of refuge ... as David recounts the detail of the deliverance God brought him while he waited and trusted in the Word of the Lord for his deliverance.

The Takeaway

We live in an age of almost everything except furniture being sold to us ready-made and instant. 

Our world is all 'get it NOW!', 'steak on your plate' and not 'wait!'

But God rewards faithfulness while waiting for Him to fulfil His promises.

And that requires deep adjustment to our patterns of thought ...

The message of Psalm 18, in its context, is that faithful reliance on God's promises and waiting for Him to keep them pays off.

Thought for the Day 02/06/21 - Sign-writing

'Click here for AUDIO

The charity I work for has a pool vehicle ... the Chaplaincy Landrover.

It's a great high-profile asset

It goes into places responding to rural people's crises - places that a little hatch back wouldn't go.

It carries a lot of kit for the Drive-In Church services we organise around the place and it flies the flag and draws attention to what we do ... because it is fairly heavily sign-written with details of all the stuff we get up to.

Of course, it carries details of the contact points where people can indirectly see what we're up to without direct communication being required (social media etc.) and also directly contact us when they want to do so (phone numbers, WhatsApp and email).

And yes, this truck is a focal point in the livestock markets with its awning and tables and chairs where people can sit, chew the fat and spin yarns.

The low profile asset

Now, I'm not the one driving the Landrover today and I'll be in Llandovery Mart in ... a Ford Fiesta! But it has a sun-visor sign that lets people know I'm around and that they can find me and have a chat if they'd like to. I just pull it down, and then they know.

The thing is, I drive much more sensitively in a sign-written vehicle than in the sort where the signage is clipped onto the back of a retractable sun-visor ... like the one I'll be driving today.

No ... I DON'T tend to go cutting people up at roundabouts  or honking my horn aggressively at Mrs. Evans (a generic term) as she pootles along a 60 mph road at 35!

But in the sign-written vehicle I'm much more careful to smile and wave.

And that's pretty much the sort of sensitivity that underlies our Verse for the Day today ...

"And whatever you do, 

whether in word or deed, 

do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, 

giving thanks to God the Father through him."

                                       Colossians 3:17

It's all about doing what it says 'on the tin'

That's pretty much a Biblical admonition to 'do what it says on the tin'!

'Whatever you do ... do it all' is a call for consistency across the board of your human life and interactions because as a known Christian (and there isn't really any other sort of Christian) your tin is already 'sign-written'.

Doing it in the Name of the Lord Jesus defines how you are to do it all ... do it all as a sign-written follower of Christ that neither He nor you would be ashamed to have your names painted on the side of. 

'Wow! Hold on there! That sounds like an IMPOSSIBLY tall order!' (Says somebody).

'Live so Jesus wouldn't be ashamed of you?!'

Yes ... because how to live so Jesus wouldnt be ashamed of you is then further defined in that last line there:

"... giving thanks to God the Father through him."

Journeying from sadness to gladness

The Christian is a person that must aspire to and culture gratitude to God, sorrow at their own sin but immense gratitude to God for His unmerited and expensive (to Him) grace shown to His sinful people in the service and sacrifice of Christ.

The Christian (wo)man is a bad (wo)man who has been made a glad (wo)man because Jesus Christ gave His sinless life to pay the penalty of their sin ... freely, the opposite of what was deserved, in their place ... as He died on the Cross and to seal their eternal security by rising from the dead when the price of sin was paid and death was conquered.

We have done NOTHING to deserve this ... it's all God's free gift to us.

So it is the GLADNESS that proclaims the glory of our salvation that needs to be painted on the Christian's 'tin' ... not so much the aspiration to live a holy life which inevitably accompanies that.

The Point

If religion is a set of rules to us, then it becomes a drudgery and shows people a very laboured, miserable face and really persuades them not to have anyhing to do with it.

When our Christianity is properly understood to be an admission that we're not what we ought to be, that God has done an immensely gracious thing to turn us from a people who live as best they can while awaiting the just sentence on our sin into a people acquitted as our penalty has been paid by another, securing an eternal home in Glory by His sheer grace alone ... then that makes His people a humble and a thankful people and says much more truthful and gladsome things about our God ... and, of course, about what it's like to follow Him!

The Takeaway

Known Christians are always doing whatever they do 'under' the Name of Christ ... because they're CHRIST-ians, if you see what I mean?!

We never feel we're worthy or that we get it right all the time. 

But what He seeks from us is honesty about our failures (which highlights our need of His grace) and gratitude that shows the goodness of His salvation.

Whatever we do in Word or deed we are SEEN to do it in the Name of the Lord Jesus.

Let's be sure we reflect all that's true about Him and about us in the gratitude that we show for His grace.

Thought for the Day 01/06/21 - Clap!

Click here for AUDIO

 

It’s really odd when you’re sitting in church, somebody speaks or sings or something and then a round of applause breaks out, don’t you think?

Why do we do that?!

Well, I imagine it’s an emotional expression much like any other. 

We are in some way moved by what has just happened and we want to show approval, appreciation or gratitude.

It’s something we do normally in some contexts … in others it is almost required, as in the theatre or concert hall … but in church it seems to some of us to be a bit anomalous. Nice, but … we’re not used to doing there.

Clapping - what’s that ABOUT?!

Behaviourist Desmond Morris reckons it’s a sort of ‘pat on the back’ from a distance. I’ve never thought of it like that myself.

No-one knows when we started to clap, but it seems to be a learned behaviour rather than a natural one.

Monkeys do it, but when THEY do so, it seems to mean the absolute opposite of approval … which is odd because it’s when people are being (let’s say) ‘unwise' in the Bible ... for example in the book of Job that ... clapping is derisive in the Bible too … Job 27:23, 34:37 … and you get the same in Lamentations 2:15.

When Jehoiada took Joash, son of Ahaziah who had been rescued from mass slaughter of all his sibblings in a palace coup and anointed him King ...

“Jehoiada brought out the king’s son and put the crown on him; 

he presented him with a copy of the covenant and proclaimed him king. 

They anointed him, and the people clapped their hands and shouted, ‘Long live the king!’”

‭‭2 Kings‬ ‭11:12‬

Clapping happens in Scripture, but it’s a bit special, a bit exceptional.

Romans

It was the Romans who really got going with it because in Latin plays you get the command ‘plaudite’ at suitable points indicating that approval should now be shown by the audience.

 Professional ‘clappers’ were paid to get it going, and in Roman politics this was important as it seems to have functioned as an informal sort of poll rating.

Plane passengers

It used to be customary for passengers to clap when their plane landed too … this seems to have started in 1948 when the passengers clapped in relief on landing at Cincinnati airport when the landing gear on their plane malfunctioned!

It's possible that clapping is being phased out, though, in Western society.

Is clapping being 'phased out'?

There’s been a recent movement to replace clapping with ‘Jazz Hands’ … which is sign language for clapping anyway … as the sound of clapping can disturb people with acute anxiety or whose cognitive style places them somewhere significant on the autistic spectrum.

So what’s going on in our Verse for the Day?

“Clap your hands, all you nations; shout to God with cries of joy. 

For the Lord Most High is awesome, 

the great King over all the earth.”

‭‭Psalms‬ ‭47:1-2‬ ‭

Well, undoubtedly this is about applause not derision or primate hostility!

This is what’s known as a 'Royal Psalm’ and the psalmist is giving us a song of exuberant and joyful praise to God for Who He is and what He has done.

Noticeably, it is both Israel and the other Nations of the world that are being called upon to rejoice and cry out to God in joyful praise.

It is a psalm rejoicing in the re-unitng of all the people’s of the earth … what a great thing that is given how broken and messed up the world is with nation set against nation and civilian populations around the world suffering terribly from inter-communal and international strife.

The Point

How is joy and unity restored in this psalm?

It happens when the peoples of the world are united in exuberant and joyful praise and worship of God.

And that is precisely the vision of what the Christian Gospel achieves in the world in the New Testament - as the Lord himself puts it:

“I have other sheep that are not of this sheepfold. 

I must bring them also. 

They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.”

‭‭John‬ ‭10:16‬ 

Or as Paul phrases it to the Ephesian church:

“he made known to us the mystery of his will 

according to his good pleasure, 

which he purposed in Christ, 

to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfilment 

– to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.”

‭‭Ephesians‬ ‭1:9-10‬ ‭

The Takeaway

Exuberant praise is FINE!

But the point and purpose of the Gospel, in fact of the work of Christ itself, is that the people of the world should be brought together in exuberant, spontaneous and joyful praise of God.

The believer has got a part to play in bringing that about by holding out the Gospel to the World.

And the non-believer (as yet) is invited to climb aboard with that Gospel and the mission of this vision.

So the question for us this morning has got to be: 

what am I going to do to further the world’s unifying destiny in Christ today?