The text that I wish to bring to your attention is one that indicates that God works to a timetable.
Nothing proves this better than these verses.
“But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons,” Galatians 4:4-5.
In like fashion, we are told that that the Lord, “Hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation,” Acts 17:26.
God having timetable, which He most certainly will keep to, is a source of encouragement for us to live holy lives as Paul taught. “And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not,” Galatians 6:9.
Above all, do we not long for that time, unknown in its preciseness to us but absolutely certain nevertheless! “Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead,” Acts 17:31. We are to, “Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh,” Matthew 25:13.
There have been many great days in the calendar of God’s mercy. Few greater than that of 31st October 1517! According to Philip Melanchthon, 31 October 1517 was the day Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-five Theses on the door of the All Saints’ Church in Wittenberg, Electorate of Saxony, in the Holy Roman Empire.
Have we not much to rejoice in and be thankful for on this the 507th anniversary of that glorious day!
I trust you benefit from this study.
Sincerely in Christ’s name,
Ivan Foster
“It is time for thee, LORD, to work: for they have made void thy law,” Psalm 119:126.
The above verse is part of the scheduled Bible reading (McCheyne’s Bible Reading Calendar) for 30th October. The time to tell the Lord to work has arrived when there has been a making ‘void’, or ‘disannulling or causing to cease’ God’s Law.
It has been that time in the British Isles for a long time now!
In very recent days, that ‘Arch-apostate’, Justin Welby, the leader of the Church of England, that religious organisation of which British monarchs have long held an honorary ‘headship’, and which has given a lead to the rebellion against God and His Word for a very long time now, has descended to depths he had not heretofore gone!
There is an article on the website of ‘Christian Concern’, entitled: ‘Archbishop abandons C of E doctrine to approve of same-sex intimacy’.
In truth, such a revelation is not surprising since Welby has spent his life abandoning historic Christian doctrine as is set down in ‘39 Articles of Religion’, a document born in the glorious days of the Protestant Reformation.
The article in ‘Christian Concern’ contains this quotation from Welby and a comment by the writer, Tim Dieppe:
“What the Archbishop of York and I, and the bishops, by a majority, by no means unanimous, and the church is deeply split over this. Where we’ve come to is to say that all sexual activity should be within a committed relationship and whether it’s straight or gay. In other words, we’re not giving up on the idea that sex is within marriage or civil partnership. We’ve put forward a proposal that where people have been through a civil partnership or a same-sex marriage, equal marriage under the 2014 Act, they should be able to come along to their local, to a church, and have a service of prayer and blessing for them in their lives together. So we accept that. Now, I think this is a long way from church same-sex marriage.”
This is the clearest statement (despite the gobbledegook) that Welby has yet made on his views on homosexuality and it is plain that he and other Bishops are now unashamed of departing from C of E doctrine.
More accurately, it is to be observed that Welby is unashamed of his departure from and opposition to the Law of God!
What Welby and his fellow Episcopalian apostates is here guilty of is, as our text puts it, making ‘void’ God’s Law.
In truth, these evil men would relegate God and His Law to the ‘scrapheap’ of religious rubbish!
Observing this, the believer must realises that it is ‘time’ for God to work.
I. THE LORD WOULD HAVE US OBSERVE THE ‘TIME’ OR THE ‘SEASON’ IN THE REALM OF RELIGIOUS AFFAIRS.
All too many take little or no heed to what is happening in the nation’s religious affairs. Yet the direction that the nation is going in spiritually tells us most accurately just what lies ahead for the nation!
Moses taught the children of Israel this simple truth.
“Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse; a blessing, if ye obey the commandments of the LORD your God, which I command you this day: and a curse, if ye will not obey the commandments of the LORD your God, but turn aside out of the way which I command you this day, to go after other gods, which ye have not known,” Deuteronomy 11:26-28.
Only Two Roads
A nation and an individual may be travelling on only one of two roads! The road of ‘blessing’ or the road of the ‘curse’. That is, we will be under the blessing and approval of God or under His curse and execration!
One will bring us to joy and peace and heaven’s favour and the other will bring upon us God’s judgment and wrath!
Under the leadership of men like Welby, ‘Christendom’ has long been abandoning the road of God’s blessing and striding defiantly down the road of God’s curse.
Governments and national institutions have been following the blind and rebellious leadership of the Welbys of so-called ‘Christianity’ but what is in truth, ‘Anti-christianity’. This is seen in the nation embracing laws and sanctioning that which the Lord declares as unlawful. Immorality, drunkenness, abortion, atheism, heathenism and now the perversions of those termed the ‘LGBTQ+ people’!!
All is deemed legitimate and wholesome and woe betide any who speak against such laws!
This is a clear indication of just where the nation has arrived. We have reached that section of the road at which Sodom and Gomorrha had reached just before God turned those cities “into ashes” and “condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly,” 2 Peter 2:6.
Of course, since under the guidance of Welby and his ilk, such an ‘ensample’ (example) has been cast aside and it is therefore inevitable that there will be a reaping by today’s misguided nations of the same fiery harvest as befell Sodom and Gomorrha.
II. THE ‘WORK’ THAT IT IS TIME FOR THE LORD TO PERFORM, IS A WORK OF DIVINE INTERVENTION WHICH WILL END THE DEFIANCE LED BY WELBY AND COMPANY UNDER GOD’S JUDGMENT.
Having just written this heading, I thought I would consult the wise comments of C H Spurgeon on the text. He says in his opening comment:
“Men make void the law of God by denying it to be his law, by promulgating commands and doctrines in opposition to it, by setting up tradition in its place, or by utterly disregarding and scorning the authority of the lawgiver. Then sin becomes fashionable, and a holy walk is regarded as a contemptible puritanism; vice is styled pleasure, and vanity bears the bell. Then the saints sigh for the presence and power of their God: Oh for an hour of the King upon the throne and the rod of iron!”
Mr Spurgeon goes on to say:
“The Lord can work either by judgments which hurl down the ramparts of the foe; or by revivals which build up the walls of his own Jerusalem. How heartily may we pray the Lord to raise up new evangelists, to quicken those we all already have, to set his whole church on fire, and to bring the world to his feet. God’s work is ever honourable and glorious; as for our work, it is as nothing apart from him.”
Things have moved on since the days of Mr Spurgeon. I believe that we are nearing the time when God’s intervention is that recorded in (Isaiah 37:36.
“Then the angel of the LORD went forth, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and fourscore and five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses.”
There is a time when the Lord Jesus shall repeat what He did here upon the Assyrians only it will be upon all those who have allied themselves with the rebellion against Him of which Welby is presently, a prominent leader.
Paul wrote of that day in a bid to comfort those facing that same defiance of God that we see today to a greater scale.
“Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you; and to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power; when he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe (because our testimony among you was believed) in that day,” 2 Thessalonians 1:6-10.
The events in the religious realm today, with the dishonouring of the Lord, the mocking and despising of His Laws, the blasphemies against His holy name — all this should stir the believer to pray in the spirit of David in Psalm 59.
“Thou therefore, O LORD God of hosts, the God of Israel, awake to visit all the heathen: be not merciful to any wicked transgressors. Selah,” verse 5.
Asaph the Psalmist said:
“Thou, even thou, art to be feared: and who may stand in thy sight when once thou art angry? Thou didst cause judgment to be heard from heaven; the earth feared, and was still, when God arose to judgment, to save all the meek of the earth. Selah. Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee: the remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain. Vow, and pay unto the LORD your God: let all that be round about him bring presents unto him that ought to be feared. He shall cut off the spirit of princes: he is terrible to the kings of the earth,” Psalm 76:7-12.
The day the Christian longs for, the day of the Lord, when He will return to raise his sleeping saints from the grave of death and glorify them with Himself, is also a day of hell fire for those in rebellion and rejection of the Saviour. It is but proper and in keeping with the love of God, to long for an end of the defiance of the wicked and a judging of them for their sins!
I must quote all of the Psalm 10 to illustrate this truth from the words of one who spoke under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit!
“Why standest thou afar off, O LORD? why hidest thou thyself in times of trouble? The wicked in his pride doth persecute the poor: let them be taken in the devices that they have imagined. For the wicked boasteth of his heart’s desire, and blesseth the covetous, whom the LORD abhorreth. The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God: God is not in all his thoughts. His ways are always grievous; thy judgments are far above out of his sight: as for all his enemies, he puffeth at them. He hath said in his heart, I shall not be moved: for I shall never be in adversity. His mouth is full of cursing and deceit and fraud: under his tongue is mischief and vanity. He sitteth in the lurking places of the villages: in the secret places doth he murder the innocent: his eyes are privily set against the poor. He lieth in wait secretly as a lion in his den: he lieth in wait to catch the poor: he doth catch the poor, when he draweth him into his net. He croucheth, and humbleth himself, that the poor may fall by his strong ones. He hath said in his heart, God hath forgotten: he hideth his face; he will never see it. Arise, O LORD; O God, lift up thine hand: forget not the humble. Wherefore doth the wicked contemn God? he hath said in his heart, Thou wilt not require it. Thou hast seen it; for thou beholdest mischief and spite, to requite it with thy hand: the poor committeth himself unto thee; thou art the helper of the fatherless. Break thou the arm of the wicked and the evil man: seek out his wickedness till thou find none. The LORD is King for ever and ever: the heathen are perished out of his land. LORD, thou hast heard the desire of the humble: thou wilt prepare their heart, thou wilt cause thine ear to hear: To judge the fatherless and the oppressed, that the man of the earth may no more oppress,” Psalm 10:1-18.
Study these petitions and note how the arrogance, the evil defiance of the wicked stirs the heart of the holy to pray against the rebels and desire the Lord to demonstrate His holy wrath against such, so that He is vindicated in judgment and wrath against sin.
I say that it is time for God’s people to pray for such a ‘work’ to take place today!
Rev Ivan Foster (Rtd)
Thursday 31st October, 2024