Lamentations is not an easy book to read.The nation of Israel had been carried off in exile because of their persistent idolatry, rebellion and disobedience and each chapter tells of the anguish and heartache of God’s people (Lam 1:1-4), a heartache made worse because this was brought about by God Himself (Lam 2:7, 17). Nonetheless, even in this anguish, God’s loyal love and faithfulness remain true (Lam 3:22-23).

We may well live in times of anguish and sorrow, but God wants these things to drive us further towards Him as we learn to pray with persistence and perseverance. Jesus taught us to ask, seek and knock (Matt 7: 7-8) and told a parable to remind us to always pray and never give up (Luke 18:1-8).

Our human tendency is to give up easily, to expect instant answers from God and to feel discouraged if He does not work immediately (if not sooner!) Jesus gave us this parable to remind us that persistence in prayer – percussive drilling – is required if we are to reach the living water of God. Prayer can release the water of God’s river; it can access God’s blessings on our lives, on our churches, on our communities and on our country. But the kind of prayer which does this is not something which is perfunctory – carried out with a minimum of effort or reflection. It is agonising prayer full of tears – and that is something we shy from.

God wants to give us His heart of compassion and love, however. (Ezek 11:19-20, Ezek 36:26-27) We need to ask God to soften our hearts so that we can feel His compassion and weep with His tears. (‘Soften My Heart’, Graham Kendrick) Then God can lead us to a new level of prayer where we pray with passion and fervour and tears for His revival and for people to come to know Him. May we not only access God’s living water in new ways and experience God’s abundant life in our own lives and in our own families but also learn to take our spiritual weapons and pray with percussive drilling, with persistence and perseverance, until we see God move by His Spirit in power and revival, bringing many people to faith.

“The tears stream from my eyes, an artesian well of tears, until you, God, look down from on high, look and see my tears. (Lam 3:49-50, The Message)

These verses from Lamentations 3 continued our series ‘The Wells of Salvation’, looking at how God wants us to develop persistence in prayer. An artesian well is a source of water that does not need pumps at all. This type of well seems to defy gravity because the pressure that builds up between layers of rock gets relieved when the water finds a path to the open air. The water is naturally filtered because it passes through porous rock as it seeps into the Earth to reach the aquifer, and then the water is accessed by drilling so that you don’t have to manually or mechanically haul the water up from the depths. In some cases, if the pressure is great enough, the water bursts forth like a fountain, and that becomes a geyser such as is found in some parts of the United States or Iceland, for example.

The first known artesian well was drilled in 1126 by a group of monks in Artois, France – and that’s why they’re called ‘artesian wells’ (‘artesian’ is the adjective from the place name ‘Artois’). They used a bore, a rod with a sharp end, to penetrate a layer of impermeable rock to reach an aquifer. They persistently drummed into the rock with this bore until they eventually broke through the rock and water came gushing forth. Because the rock filters the water, the water which they eventually found was pure and safe to drink and these kinds of water sources are found in many different places all over the world.

This reminds us of two truths:

1. This water is naturally present in our world. There is ample water for all the world, provided by God, and this natural truth applies to our spiritual lives too. When Jesus talked about rivers of living water flowing from within us (John 7:38), there is no sense that there are any restrictions or limitations to these rivers. There is no lack in God; we will never suck Him dry, so to speak.

2. God’s abundant supply does not mean we sit by passively and do nothing. Of the monks in Artois, it is written, ‘Their percussive drilling — just hammering on the end of the bore — broke through the rock with sheer human force.’[1] So the water is there, given to us as a gift from God, but the means these monks used involved hard work, brute force, and probably took quite a long time. God wants us to learn to pray with perseverance and tears, that as we sow with tears, we may reap with songs of joy. (Ps 126:5)

   

   [1] https://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-an-artesian-well.htm

Christmas celebrates the coming of Jesus Christ in human form, Jesus the Messiah, God’s Anointed One. Many Jews have put their faith in Jesus as the Messiah, but many still do not believe He is the Messiah or that He has fulfilled any Messianic prophecies. Garry spoke this morning on some of the Old Testament prophecies fulfilled by Jesus which can encourage us to see that He is indeed God’s anointed and chosen One.

In Luke 24, Jesus gave probably the best Bible study ever, showing how the Messiah had to suffer before entering into His glory (see Luke 24:25-27). He spoke many times about this subject (e.g. to the woman at the well in John 4:25-26 or when He spoke of fulfilling Isaiah 61, a passage that heralded the Messiah’s arrival). When Peter proclaimed that He was the Messiah, Jesus did not refute this claim or rebuke him (Matt 16:16-17). Instead, His birth, life and death demonstrated the fulfilment of many Old Testament prophecies:

1. The Messiah would be a descendant of David (see 2 Sam 7:12-16), fulfilled in Luke 1:26-33.

2. The Messiah would be greater than David (see Psalm 110), also see Luke 20:41-44

3. The Messiah would be preceded by Elijah (Mal 4:5); see Jesus’s response to John’s disciples in Matt 11:11

4. The Messiah would be a prophet (Deut 18:15); see Matt 13:27, Matt 21:11

5. The Messiah would be born of a virgin (Is 7:14); see Matt 1:22-23.

6. The Messiah would be born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2); see Luke 2:4-7

7. The Messiah would know sacrifice and die (see Dan 9:24-26)

We can be secure in our faith because that faith rests on facts and on the fulfilment of so many prophetic words about the Messiah. There are promises still to be fulfilled, but we can be sure that God will bring these to pass as well (see 2 Pet 1:16-19).

At our Christmas Day service, we looked at Matt 2:1-12 and the subject of ‘Precious Presents’. Most of us are familiar with the idea that the gifts brought to Jesus by the wise men or Magi have a symbolic meaning: gold representing the fact He was born to be King, frankincense emphasising His priestly role in offering Himself as a a sacrifice and myrrh looking ahead to His death and burial. But these gifts can also have meaning for us too.

Gold was undoubtedly chosen because it represented wealth and financial security. For us, it is a reminder that God has promised to provide for all our needs (see Phil 4:19, Matt 6:24-34) and we need to be confident that He is both our provision and our provider. If we seek Him above everything, He will look after our material needs as well as every other need.

Frankincense reminds us that life is all about worship really. Idolatry simply means putting something before God and John warns us against this (1 John 5:21). The measure of our love for anything is our willingness to lay it down at God’s command. We need to be willing to see life as revolving around God and not ourselves and to bring ‘our everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering.’ (Rom 12:1-2, The Message)

Myrrh, that bitter perfume which, in the words of the carol, ‘breathes a life of gathering gloom’ (‘We Three Kings’), was probably a bewildering gift to Mary: who celebrates the birth of a baby by thinking ahead to his death? Similarly, Simeon’s prophecy that her own heart would be pierced must have seemed baffling. We need to understand that sorrow and suffering will always be a part of life in a sin-stained world and have a faith that can withstand shaking. Life can be tough at times, but we have an eternal hope which can sustain us. . (2 Cor 4:17-18)

The challenge for each one of us is to take the presents; learn the lessons; live the life that God has shaped for us, being secure in His love and empowered by His Spirit.

This is the last day of our Advent musings, the last day of our preparations for Christmas. Very shortly we will be celebrating the birth of our Lord and holding on to the many promises He has yet to fulfil. Paul talks about the three great virtues of the Christian faith in 1 Cor 13: faith, hope and love. All three are desperately needed nowadays as always and all three can be found in Jesus Christ.

Alfred Delp wrote, ‘Advent is the time of promise; it is not yet the time of fulfilment. We are still in the midst of everything and in the logical inexorability and relentlessness of destiny.’ We look ahead to Christmas, and from that fulfilment, we look ahead still further, to the return to Jesus Christ. When we started the period of Advent, Christmas seemed a long way off; now it is almost within touching distance. In the same way, there is much that lies ahead for us in God which seems a long way off, but the hope we have fuels us in the long wait. As Paul says, ‘hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.’ (Rom 8:24-25)

Picture the scene: Boxing Day evening and all the family festivities are over. There’s a pile of wrapping paper and cardboard boxes still to sort out; there’s a table full of foodie leftovers to put in the fridge. The children are finally in bed, worn out by excitement over the festivities, and parents are longing to join them! As they tidy things away, they find some precious toys, eagerly embraced yesterday, already broken or needing more batteries. Christmas seems so very ephemeral at times.

Life can seem very ephemeral also. As we age, we realise that the grass withers and the flowers fall (Is 40:8) and ‘the span of my years is as nothing before you. Everyone is but a breath.’ (Ps 39:5) We are fast approaching the end of 2019; I can remember as a child looking ahead to the 21^st century as something exotic and beyond my comprehension, and now we’re nearly twenty years into that century! One of the things we can be grateful for, however, is that God endures. His word endures forever (Is 40:8); His love endures forever (Ps 100:5); His renown endures forever (Ps 102:12); His righteousness endures forever (Ps 111:3); His faithfulness endures forever (Ps 117:2); His name endures forever (Ps 135:13). He Himself is without beginning or end: ‘from everlasting to everlasting You are God.’ (Ps 90:2) In God, we have Someone who won’t break, fail, run out of steam or simply disappear. In God, we have Someone who will be with us forever.