Lord’s Day, Vol. 11 No. 17
(1) His Glorious Presence (3)
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There is the testimony of a servant of God:
A founding professor of Princeton Seminary testified. I prayed and then read the Bible until my strength was exhausted. I knelt upon the ground and poured out perhaps a single petition…when in a moment, I had such a view of a crucified Saviour, as it not parallel in my experience. The whole plan of grace appeared as clear as day. I was persuaded that God was willing to accept me, just as I was, and convinced that I had never before understood the freeness of salvation, but had always been striving to bring some price in my hand or to prepare myself for receiving Christ. I felt truly a joy which was unspeakable and full of glory. It was not until he admitted his spiritual impotence and threw himself entirely on God’s mercy that Archibald Alexander entered the joy of salvation. Yet for those who understand the doctrine of grace, the whole Christian life is lived with the same spirit of dependence.
One true way to demonstrate complete dependence of a submissive will is by making a commitment to a life of prayer. In prayer, we surrender our will to God’s will. Prayer is not a way of getting God to do what we want Him to do, rather, it is a way of submitting to God’s will in all things.
When the hymn The Last Last Hour was sung during the FEBC night class on Eschatology in May 2001, I felt transported to the very gates of heaven.
In response to the hymn, I responded with these 3 verses entitled “Our Loved Ones”
Our loved ones do we bring to God, in prayer pleading for their souls
For His great mercy on their lot, that heaven be our common goal.
Then brethren let us do His will, to give gospel of His love
To those we hold dear in our hearts, that day of parting be not hard.
A better place that we would go, His wondrous glory we will behold
There be no tears nor pain to endure, this the home that’s so secure.
When we pray for sinners to be converted, therefore, we ask God to do something for them that we know they are utterly incapable of doing for themselves. We ask God to invade their minds, change their hearts, and bend their wills so that they will come to Him in faith and repentance. In short, in our intercession, we depend on God to save them.
This attitude of dependence ought to characterize the Christian’s approach to evangelism. True evangelism is entirely dependent on God for its success. The regeneration of the sinners’ minds is the work of God’s Spirit. It does not depend on saying the right words or using the most effective technique. Christianity is not a performance-based religion. Those who are saved by grace also live by grace, and their growth in grace is due to the gracious work of God’s Spirit.
One way that God accomplishes His glory in the life of the Christian is through suffering. The Christian life is difficult, and God never promised otherwise. Jesus frankly told his disciples, “In this world, ye shall have tribulation” (John 16:33). In addition to all the hardships of living in a fallen world-disease, disaster and death-the Christians is always at risk of persecution. Calvin says “All whom the Lord has chosen and received into the society of saints, ought to prepare themselves for a life that is hard, difficult and laborious, and full of countless griefs.”
As it was for Christ, so it is for the Christian: through suffering into glory. First humiliation, then exaltation – the cross before the crown. A vision of heaven is a vision of the cross. Isaiah bore his cross, he had to walk barefoot and naked for 3 years to signify God’s coming judgment on Egypt and Ethiopia as recorded for our learning in Isaiah chapter 20. Our Lord’s return is very near, even at the doorstep, we are in history last, last hour, we are the privileged people with the message of salvation through Christ Jesus, and may we go forth to proclaim it. What are we waiting for? May we go forth to bring the gospel to the lost souls?
The late Dr Buswell wrote, “The great need of the world today is for consecrated channels for the convicting work of the Holy Spirit. Only so can there be genuine turning to the Lord and acceptance of the Gospel.”
I will end with this testimony.
In 2002, during Hari Raya the Istana was opened to the public, and my wife and I brought our daughter to see the Singapore Presidential Palace. It was at 5 pm that we arrived at the Istana grounds. The Istana is just opposite the Dhoby Ghaut MRT station. At that time, my wife was carrying our second child. My daughter saw as we entered the gate of Istana an open field. Little did we realize that at the edge of the field was a pond. It had rained the day before and the water level came to the level of the field. Water-hyacinth were planted on the surface of the water so densely that it covered the entire pond.
My daughter was running freely in the field. The policeman who was on duty that evening happened to walk away leaving the stretch between the pond and the field unguarded. My daughter not realizing the danger ran the way of the pond and suddenly, she dropped in. Thank God I was following close to her. I instinctively jumped into the water, it was very dark, and I could not see a thing, thank God I managed to grab hold of my daughter’s sweater and caught hold of her, lifting her up as high as I could with all my might. A Chinese national was there to grab my daughter. I managed to get out of the pond, both of us wet all over as the police escorted us over to the police vehicle nearby to clean ourselves and rest from our ordeal.
We were told that the pond was very deep. I could not imagine the scenario if I had missed grabbing my daughter, she would have drowned. It was a frightening experience for me each time of I thought of it.
What is more frightening when I drew an application from this experience if our loved ones are lost to hell because they do not know the Lord Jesus Christ as their personal Saviour. They would certainly be falling directly into hell. Could we say as Isaiah did?
When God gave the command to preach the gospel to herald the Second Coming of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and the coming judgment on planet Earth, the message is that urgent. We have to be ready at that moment of testing to be sensitive to the prompting of the Holy Spirit to testify of our faith. Would we be equal to the task? We may not be, but Isaiah knew that he was unfit to do the work, it is only by the sheer grace of God that we are given this privilege to prepare ourselves for witnessing the gospel. What are we waiting for?
CONCLUSION
May we answer the call like what Isaiah did “Here am I, send me!
(2) Thanksgiving Service
We were gathered for a Special Thanksgiving Service last Lord’s Day (31 May 2022) to praise the Lord for sustaining and strengthening His Church in the past two years during the course of the pandemic. We recounted God’s grace and goodness toward the church. Psalm 116 was the text we meditated upon to depict the plight of the church during the testing that God has put us through in the past 2 years. This psalm is a personal testimony of God’s goodness experienced by the psalmist in the time of great affliction.
1 John 4:19 (KJV) We love him, because he first loved us.
He tells us that our faith can sustain us in the severest trials. He expressed his gratitude for God’s deliverance and re-consecrated himself to love the Lord even more for all the good things that he has received from the Lord.
On 28 May 2023, we shall gather to remember the Lord’s goodness and grace in over the last three years of the pandemic in blessing His church, this congregation of God’s people for His glory. Amen.
Yours lovingly,
Pastor Lek Aik Wee