Prayer
It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees. The law from your mouth is more precious to me than thousands of pieces of silver and gold (Psalm 119:71-72).
Today’s Hymn
Words: Isaac Watts, The Psalms of David, 1719. Music: Antioch, arranged by Lowell Mason, 1836.
The tune is the piecing together of themes in Handel’s Messiah found in the chorus and in the instrumental interludes in “Lift up your heads” and the introduction and interludes of the recitative “Comfort ye.” John Wilson in “Handel and the Hymn Tune: II, Some Hymn Tune Arrangements,” in the January 1986 volume of The Hymn has traced the tune’s origins to A Collection of Tunes, ed. T. Hawkes, 1833, and Voce de Melodia, ed. William Holford, ca. 1835. It was popularized in the USA by Lowell Mason who included our version in Occasional Psalm and Hymn Tunes, 1836, and for no stated reason named it ANTIOCH (see Henry L. Mason, Hymn-Tunes of Lowell Mason, 1944).
JOY TO THE WORLD
Click here for tune.
Joy to the world, the Lord is come!
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare Him room,
And Heaven and nature sing,
And Heaven and nature sing,
And Heaven, and Heaven, and nature sing.
Joy to the earth, the Savior reigns!
Let men their songs employ;
While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat, repeat, the sounding joy.
No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found,
Far as the curse is found,
Far as, far as, the curse is found.
He rules the world with truth and grace,
And makes the nations prove
The glories of His righteousness,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders, wonders, of His love.
Thought Provoker
A Welsh newspaper carried an article on 18th June 1993 which announced that the Rev. Medwyn Griffiths will be cremated on Wednesday without a service or ceremonial, according to his strict instructions. He said “a funeral does nothing for the soul of the deceased.” Was he right or wrong?
In a way, he was right. Nothing that is said or done at a funeral can alter the destination of our souls.
“It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment” (Heb 9:27):
However, not to have any funeral is wrong because:
i) It denies those we leave behind an opportunity to come to terms with our death and grieve. (50 v.1, 10f)
ii) It denies God his rightful due of thanksgiving for a person’s life.
iii) Not to dispose of the body in a dignified way is despising God’s gift of bodily life.
iv) “It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting: for that is the end of all men; and the living will lay it to his heart” (Eccl. 7:2). The “living” need funerals.
By burying Jacob in Canaan, in accordance with his instructions (based on his faith), his family was being reminded that Israel had an inheritance. God has wonderful plans for us beyond this earthly life. Death is the (often sad and painful) entrance into God’s intended good.
Dad’s Study
But “as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive” (v.20).
i) A guilty conscience. The evil they had done to Joseph was still weighing heavily on their minds. Now that Jacob was dead, they feared retribution (v.15). Ask your family about what Joseph’s brothers did next. What was wrong? (v.16-17a) What was right? (v.17b- 18).
Do we humbly take full responsibility for our sins, or do we try to cover up and make excuses?
Who have we really offended? Joseph makes it clear that God is our judge, and only God can forgive our sins (v.19). Do we boldly go to our “Joseph” for forgiveness (Christ)? But before we go to him, is there someone we have offended or wronged to whom we must go and ask forgiveness? As you come before the Lord in your family prayers this morning, is there anything between any of you or between the children that would quench the Holy Spirit? Had you better pause and put things right first?
ii) God is in control. Think of all the things that Joseph had been through in his life – the injustices, the cruelty, the hardships, and the false accusations. Notice Joseph does not say, God “allowed it”. That’s the lie of deism, which says that God is reluctant to intervene, subject to our so called “free-will”, and just lets us get on with our lives. No, Joseph says God “meant it”. cf. Gen. 45:8 It was not you that sent me hither, but God. God’s providence means that God not only permits bad things to happen, but he actually accomplishes his purposes through them, although he is not the author of sin. God is good. Can you look back on your lives and see how God brought good out of situations that were very hard at the time? Can you therefore not trust that in His time, God will bring good out of something which at the moment is very painful (like bereavement for example)?
iii) God is committed to His people. God’s providence resulted in good: To save much people alive. If it weren’t for the evil done to Joseph, he wouldn’t have become Prime Minister, and been in the position to feed many people in Egypt and Israel. On the basis of God’s commitment to His people Israel, Joseph could reassure his brothers: “Now therefore fear ye not: I will nourish you, and your little ones. And he comforted them, and spake kindly unto them” (v.21).
So Joseph could reassure them that God would bring them back to their land (v.24).
Click here for Matthew Henry’s Commentary.
Truth in Practice
What is the greatest evil that has ever been perpetrated? “Him, [The Son of God] being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain” (Acts 2:23). But look at the good! “The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree. Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins” (Acts 5:30, 31).
Is anybody in your family worried about anything? Is it any worse than anything in Romans 8:35? — “trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword — death?” Well for the Christian, it can never separate you from the love of Christ. God is committed to getting you safely to heaven. Then why worry about the little things that “go wrong”?
Let’s put our faith into practice today. Romans 8:28 And we “know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”
Catechism
Question 66
Q. Are all transgressions of the law equally heinous?
A. Some sins in themselves, and by reason of various aggravations are more heinous in the sight of God than others (John 19:11; 1 John 5:15).
