Having a Good Clear Vision of God
Being at Rest in the Promise of the Future
Good Morning,
This past weekend we enjoyed another blessed time of rest and relaxation at our denomination’s camp and conference center, Bonclarken. There are moments where I like to think Paul’s words in Hebrews are speaking of our home in Flat Rock when he says, “But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.” I joke, if only slightly.
Bonclarken was born from a contest in which Sallie Miller Brice of Chester, South Carolina submitted the winning name in 1921. It is a combination of two Latin and one Scots word which when placed together means Good, Clear, Vision. There is something to be said for each of those words in the Christian life. Individually taken they illustrate in their own way a part of the reason why we love Jesus. We love Him because He is good to us in more ways than we can count. We love Him because His word to us is clear, without blemish, and always true. We love Him because He provides to the church a purpose, a vision, through which we can awaken every day and know what our reason for being is and know what our future beholds. We are to glorify Him and enjoy Him forever, not merely for what He does for us, but for who He is.
This last one is a thing that we would be wise to take more time to consider. Especially as we face difficulties in the day-to-day. Having a bigger picture of the coming glory found alone in Jesus Christ can be a great help to shout down the attempts of the evil one to cause us to doubt God’s goodness, clarity, and ownership of that which is to come. For today’s prayer and worship help we are going to walk through some of the aspects of how we can change the way we look at things and move to having a certainty of hope in the eternal promises found in Christ.
Imagine if you will what vision means to persons like Simeon and Anna in Luke 2. As they waited for the coming of the Messiah they did so with no real outward benefit, until their was. The reason why they both served quietly and contently in the manner God had provided was because they understood rightly that their comfort in life and death was in the yeah and amen of the Lord, not in their felt needs nor their requiring a sign, for they had received one in what Jehovah had said in His word. In their years of service they never questioned either the Lord’s timing or His purpose in making them wait to see Jesus, in their situation meaning it literally.
It is also worth noting that they were not the first people to work and wait in the courts of the Temple in Jerusalem. Most assuredly there were those who died in the years between the final testimony of Malachi and the first appearance of John the Baptist. What about them? It’s not to be thought that Simeon and Anna were like the winners of some grand game of musical chairs, who just happened to be in Jerusalem when the sound stopped. They were just the last of an unbroken line of faithful men and women who waited with joy to see the coming of the one that Isaiah, and many other prophets had promised. Expectations are not wasted when God is involved. It is wrong to say Jehovah failed just because He’s not moving at your pace.
An attack that was made against the disciples in the New Testament echoes the attempts of Satan and the old man within us to come to a doubt of our resting in the vision given to us by God. It is retold to us by Peter in his second letter. 2 Peter 3:3-4 recounts this for us in saying, “. . . knowing this first: that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, and saying, ‘Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.’”. In those words the apostate enemies of the faithful brethren were trying to say that because Jesus had not returned in their generation that somehow that meant that He was lying and therefore they were fools to still act like the son of Joseph and Mary was the Son of God. Yet, the answer Peter gives to their taunting is instructive. He says:
For this they willfully forget: that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of water and in the water, by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water. But the heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward [c]us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.
The folks who make such statements are knowingly ignorant of the nature of God, the author of the vision. Reference is made above to the Flood in the time of Noah. If you go back and read Genesis 6 you will see that people said the same thing to the one who found grace in the eyes of the Creator. However, do we have any doubt as to who was the winner in that contest? Seems to me that the one who trusted in the vision of God outlasted those who sought to live by their own sight of what the future beheld.
In closing, there is much that matters to the Christian life, but nothing more so than our willingness to see what lies ahead through the eyes of the one who made it from before the foundation of the world. Our call to not be anxious or worried about the circumstances of life is born out of our sure and certain hope in the King of all things.
Here is a word:
https://www.modernreformation.org/resources/articles/a-transforming-vision-of-life
Blessings in Christ,
Rev. Benjamin Glaser
Pastor, Bethany ARP Church