God Save the Doubter

 

Exodus 14:14 "The LORD will fight for you, and you have only to be silent."

This, of course, comes as a command to the Israelite's as they are stuck between the Red Sea (i.e. death) and Pharaoh and his army (i.e. death).

 

Moses says to this motley crew of people... these soon-to-be nomads “Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the Lord, which He will work for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again."

 

Can hear the thoughts... the responses... from the people Israel?  

"Uh... what???"

"Yeah, but have you seen how many there are?"

"That giant body of water is in front of me and we have no boat!"

Sometimes when I am unable to see what is ahead I become fearful.  OR sometimes when I do see what IS ahead of me, fear settles in.

How quickly the Israelites doubted a Sovereign King.  

How quickly I doubt a Sovereign King.

Of course, on this side of the story, we know the outcome.  We know from reading Scripture, that God's people make it to the other side of the water.  That Pharaoh and his men are crushed.

We must not look to quickly here at just the deliverance.  For the beauty is not just the saving.  The beauty is found in God saving doubting people.  For that is what should give us great hope.   Even in the midst of forgetting whose we are, who we are - God still saves.

Happy Birthday Isaac Watts

Do you know who Mr. Watts is? Well, for starters he has penned over 500 hymns. Songs that most of us know quite well. Songs include:
Alas! and Did My Savior Bleed
Am I a Soldier of the Cross?
How Sweet and Awesome Is This Place
Marching to Zion
O God, Our Help in Ages Past
the list can go on and on...
For a full list of his songs, click here.

Here is some great bio info on this prolific father of the faith (all found here):

Watts’ fa­ther was Non­con­form­ist im­pris­oned twice for his re­li­gious views. Isaac learned Greek, Latin, and He­brew un­der Mr. Pin­horn, Rec­tor of All Saints, and head­mas­ter of the Gram­mar School in South­amp­ton. Isaac’s taste for verse showed it­self in ear­ly child­hood, and his prom­ise caused a lo­cal doc­tor and other friends to of­fer him a un­i­ver­si­ty ed­u­ca­tion, as­sum­ing he would be or­dained in the Church of Eng­land. How­ev­er, Isaac de­clined and in­stead en­tered a Non­con­for­mist Acad­e­my at Stoke New­ing­ton in 1690, un­der the care of Thom­as Rowe, pas­tor of the In­de­pen­dent cong­re­ga­tion at Gir­dlers’ Hall; Isaac joined this con­gre­ga­tion in 1693.

Watts left the Acad­e­my at age 20 and spent two years at home; it was dur­ing this per­i­od that he wrote the bulk of his Hymns and Spir­it­u­al Songs. They were sung from man­uscripts in the South­amp­ton Cha­pel, and pub­lished 1707-1709.

The next six years of his life were again spent at Stoke New­ing­ton, work­ing as tu­tor to the son of em­i­nent Pur­i­tan John Har­topp. The in­tense stu­dy of these years is re­flect­ed in the the­o­log­ic­al and phil­o­soph­ic­al ma­ter­i­al he sub­se­quent­ly pub­lished.

Watts preached his first ser­mon at age 24. In the next three years, he preached fre­quent­ly, and in 1702 was or­dained as pas­tor of the In­de­pen­dent con­gre­ga­tion in Mark Lane. At that time he moved in­to the house of a Mr. Hollis in the Mi­nor­ies. His health be­gan to fail the next year, and Sam­u­el Price was ap­point­ed as his as­sist­ant in the min­is­try. In 1712, a fe­ver shat­tered his con­sti­tu­tion, and Price be­came co-pas­tor of the con­gre­ga­tion, which had moved to a new cha­pel in Bu­ry Street. It was at this time that Isaac be­came the guest of Sir Thom­as Ab­ney. He lived with Ab­ney (and lat­er Abney’s wi­dow) the rest of his life, main­ly at The­o­balds in Hert­ford­shire, then for 13 years at Stoke New­ing­ton.

In 1728, the Un­i­ver­si­ty of Ed­in­burgh award­ed Watts a Doc­tor of Di­vin­i­ty de­gree. Watts’ works in­clude:

• Specula­tions on the Hu­man Na­ture of the Lo­gos
• Horæ Lyr­i­cae, 1706-1709
• Hymns and Spir­it­u­al Songs, 1707-9
• The Di­vine and Mor­al Songs for the Use of Child­ren, 1715
• The Psalms of Da­vid Im­i­tat­ed in the Lan­guage of the New Tes­ta­ment (Lon­don: J. Clark, 1719)
• Sermons, 1721-1727
• Reliquiae Ju­ve­niles: Mis­cel­lan­e­ous Thoughts in Prose and Verse, on Na­tur­al, Mor­al, and Di­vine Sub­jects (Lon­don: 1734)
• Remnants of Time (Lon­don: 1736)
• The Im­prove­ment of the Mind, 1741
• Logic
• The World to Come, 1745
• Catechisms, Scrip­ture His­to­ry, 1732

beFriended

from Ray Ortlund:

I cannot listen to "My Song Is Love Unknown" . . . without being moved to the depths of my being that I have such a Friend. If you have him too, you know what I mean. If you don't have him, you can. Are you willing to be beFriended?

Willingness is all he asks.


posted by JT at Thursday, July 16, 2009