Ensign: Lord, Have Mercy And That's It?

All ye inhabitants of the world, and dwellers on the earth, see ye, when he lifteth up an ensign on the mountains; and when he bloweth a trumpet, hear ye.            Isaiah 18:3

 

AN ENSIGN ON THE MOUNTAINS                                                7 April 2017 

[Jeffrey is three TIMES three years old now (see the last sentence of paragraph two) but here's a message we need even more now, I believe. Another good thing I found when I looked back that could become a blessing to someone reading it. -- David]

 

The world is made up of a number of people and they rarely think alike.  In the long run, this seems a very wise provision.  A government of and by and for one single part of the entire community cannot possibly survive.  The Puritans had been a great force for good when they tried to correct the abuses of the royal power.  As the absolute Rulers of England they became intolerable.

 

This passage from Hendrik Willem van Loon’s The Story of Mankind (published in 1926 and the first book to win a Newbery Medal the year after) can really be applied to any reform movement.  Labor unions in our day, the Nazis and Communists (surprised?  Yes, they started out with good intentions too) of the first half of the twentieth century, and even the Pharisees.  But Pharisees – even though one could do worse than argue they’re the first rabbis or “separated ones” who taught the Old Testament law – are the ones we remember as being most hidebound, set in their ways.

 

Sending Jesus for execution was just a sideline, or would be if it weren’t for the Gospels.  I bring this up because of something my son Jeffrey, who just this past Sunday started Sunday school and I read to him out of the book of Christian basics “Sunday Morning,” said when we read a page that ended with a common phrase in church service.  “Lord, have mercy.”  I said it, then he said it, then he looked at me and said, “Lord, have mercy and that’s it?”  I am convinced Jesus is proud of that from my three-year-old son; it cuts through the rigmarole, and it makes sense – or should – to everybody.

 

It came to my mind that’s the response the publican in Jesus’ parable about him and the Pharisee would give.  We’re not told much about the two gentlemen in Luke 18:9-14 other than what they said as well as the reason Jesus told this story (again, not necessarily to whom, though some could relate) “unto certain which trusted to themselves that they were righteous, and despised others:” per verse nine.  Both the Pharisee and the publican (read tax collector, with about the same respect one has today) went into the temple to pray … say what you want of God’s house, it’s where all should know they are welcome.

 

But we may not always have the best motives … read the Pharisee’s prayer in verses eleven and twelve.  “God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican.  I fast twice a week, I give tithes of all that I possess.”  I had a pastor who once referred to this passage as an “eyeful” since the Pharisee refers to himself five times!  And while you didn’t get to be a Pharisee – in essence, a teacher of the Mosaic law – in Jesus’ day (they’d already existed for nearly two centuries) or any other without hard work, all God said was “so what?”

 

It’s almost like saying, “God, this is what I’ve done (not done for You, an important distinction)” and the fact that it’s for God is a sideline.  Until we perceive our own need for God that the Pharisee didn’t beyond “God, I thank thee”, there IS nothing He can do for us.  Contrast his prayer with the publican’s, verse thirteen: “God be merciful to me a sinner.”  Jesus also emphasizes their gestures – “the Pharisee stood and prayed”, “the publican … would not lift … his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast” – and posture, an indication of how one feels, no matter how much we may hide it.

 

But the publican’s prayer, Jesus says, that’s it.  “God be merciful to me a sinner.”  The Pharisee and the publican couldn’t have known Jesus’ caveat in verse fourteen that “this man went down to his house justified rather than the other:” but Jesus the Son and God the Father’s not dependent on our knowledge or what we do for Them.  Indeed, what can we do for the Father, the Son, or the Holy Spirit that they themselves could not accomplish, and without any screw-ups?  Nothing.  So telling God what He already knows about what we’re doing, have done, or will do changes nothing.

 

But giving him a road in … I sound Shakespearean, but ay, there’s the rub.  “For every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.”  THAT’S when God is able to work, when we admit we need Him.  “God be merciful to me a sinner.”  You and I know it is hard for us, when we know we’ve done wrong, to be merciful or sometimes even like ourselves.  And the publican is certainly not, nor do any of us have the luxury to be before someone or even Someone with the power to make our works as nothing.  So I should say too, God … be merciful … to me … a sinner.     

 

Sincerely yours,

 

David  

 

P.S. I write this weekly devotional to keep in touch with all of you in my address book and I hope to be an encourager too!  If you find that I’m not or you want me to get lost, just let me know, thank you!

 

We praise You, Lord, for this beautiful day You have given us!  Please pray with me for the peace of Jerusalem on both sides of the fence and for physical and spiritual communities around our world. 

 

Lord, we need Your strength to fight the natural disasters and human ills to ultimately treat the cause and not just the symptoms; until we who have power change, this world You have made us stewards of won’t either. 

 

Thank You, Lord, for all those in leadership and service here and abroad.  Thank You for the opportunities we have been given as well as the promise of new life through Your Son.  And may we all seek and have a blessed week!  Amen.