SINGING WITH THE SUFFERING.
Masterclasses from those who know how to sing through suffering.
I was so helped Sunday morning by a sister in Christ sharing a scripture God had laid on her heart. It means all the more knowing what this very precious older sister (who has shrunken small in height, but grown humungous in heart) has gone through in life. She has become better not bitter through suffering. Her faithful generosity and prayer are fruits multiplied through many autumnal seasons of pruning through troubled times. Seasoned character is always the greatest encouragement to others, and seasoned veterans of the spiritual battle know the prepossessing self control of when to get appropriately excited and when not to. In this event... the excitement was genuine and appropriate, on Psalm 33 and the contextual encouragement PS33 is to Ukrainian believers and all who currently struggle for Christ around the world.
Psalm 33: Singing alone in suffering ?
The OT subject matter is the apparent weakness of God's people, as they depend on the guaranteed greater strength of God. How true and apt this is for many believers around the world today who live in the context of human arrogance, which revels in inflicting pain on the church with a desire to isolate individuals, curtail church growth or stamp it out. Invariably persecution has the opposite effect. Those who suffer for Christ sing incongruously sweet songs, and not alone... but with the accompaniment and inspiration of heaven. (ACTS 16:25-26). Paul and Silas where accompanied by a rhythm section from heaven which literally shook the place. There is no doubt that the song of worship and surrender to God (sung in suffering) resonates with heaven, the sufferings of the risen Christ himself and therefore heaven does not hesitate to join in. Many Psalms of suffering are the songs of Christ, only truly understood through the lens of Christ and his sufferings.
The King of heaven leads the song of Joy.
Christ our forerunner and choirmaster leads the song of victory in heaven. He alone is worthy to lead the song of God's sovereignty in history and creation, which weaves through suffering to glory.
True joy is found in our God regardless of circumstance. The character of our unchangeable God means that every day is a day appropriate for praising him even if it is behind bars, or under torture, (or suffering with covid), as we follow Christ. He assures that he is with his people as they sing, every day. Appropriate expression of that joy and praise rightly comes from our deepest being, as we try to express the infiniteness of our creator, (the one true, living, eternal God) even in our finite frames. The psalmist was right to express this joy "skilfully" (intelligently) and "loudly" (noisily / "shoutingly/ powerfully/ forcefully") through gifted music. How else can you express appropriate multidimensional worship to the one who is the maker of the cosmos (v3, 6-9)?. How can we appropriately mirror or articulate his majesty even in times of total freedom ? It needs the intricate, dynamic range and might of an orchestra, plugged into the power of a rock PA arrays, whilst multitudes of African drums beat in polyrhythm. Even with the sub bass turned right up to 11, it is still only a pale reflection of God's might, creative diversity, and unequalled explosive capacity.
I fear us Brits often whimper in praise about the God for whom volcanic eruptions are but a sniffle of creations' total power, which is itself only the residue of his creative power and incomparable to his redemptive power and what will be revealed. (1 Cor 2:9). Maybe we do contrite, reflective, quietness ok in most Uk churches???... but exuberant (world music) celebration not so easily. For brits who have never worshipped outside of their hydroponic and artificial comfort of their homeland, heaven might be a bit of a culture shock.
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.
REVELATION 21:1-3
True and faithful, righteous and just, this is he whom we worship. He has already written the end of the story for all believers before our existence, at the cross and in his resurrection. Sadly however we live in a culture which is not true, faithful, righteous, and just, but one which is false and abusive, sinful and corrupt. This is where our self control and sense of perspective needs to grow, our patience to wait for His day needs to be stretched to expand, and our maturity and perseverance needs to shine. Whilst our hearts want to shout about God now, there are times in a waiting world of injustice where the loudest shouts will come from the self confidence of mankind so full of himself. Don't be fooled however, man at his loudest is nothing compared to God at his quietest.
Here the psalmist would love an orchestra with myriads of players, but he is alone with his 10 stringed lyer (the best virtuoso instrument of the day), and what he is lacking in orchestration he makes up for in skill and volumes of genuine joy in private worship. The LORD is with him (v22) and this is where the true multidimensional volume is found, as he plugs into God. As he plays his solo part it is grafted in by the master orchestrator of unfailing love throughout the generations into an eternal symphony which resonates across the cosmos and every corner of history. The same LORD is faithfully with us today, whatever we are going through.
The need to bite our tongues as believers has never been so great, (the need to play faithful solo lines according to the conductors orchestration), because the self assertion of world leaders in our day has never been so confident and desired to be so loud and overbearing (Matt 24:6-13). The longer we await the Lords' return, the louder and more overconfident human rule seems to get, the greater the discord, the malaise of noise and less melody or music. However, the last word won't be restraint, the last word won't be ours or any mans ...but his, and then the true volume will come from him. No other voice will be heard in that moment. Therefore, we can learn to keep publicly quiet sometimes knowing that vengeance is his and not ours, and that private devotion can never be taken away even by the most overbearing human dictator. Man will not remove the melody of God written in the hearts of his people.
What brings this reality into sharp focus are situations like Ukraine, where pastors are being kidnapped, and relatives of pastors taken if church leaders cannot be found. It is a season where there are many countries (which we can't specify here) unitedly included on a joint "special mission" to silence God's people. The blog stats display how many friends will be reading this from such countries, and we want you to know that we are so praying with you and for you with a sense of great privilege. Your faithfulness is delight to us, and we are truly humbled by your fellowship, we love you. There is a boisterousness overconfidence of those current world leaders who hate the children of God, and believe that if they could shout loud enough they should be able to drown out the praise of God and the shout of victory from heaven. Even if you can proudly strut and shout (even with phosphorus and hypersonic bombs), you will not be able to delete God, blot out his eternal people, or their eternal praise. See psalm 33...
v16-17 remind us of the vanity and impotence of self confidence found in God's enemies.
v18-19 remind us of the security of those who live knowing that his gaze is upon us. He will provide, so that even in days of famine we will feel full.
This word is for our day, our world, and friends who suffer.
So friends who live under the constant noise and scars of man's destructive rule, we pray for your self control to wait, and our characters to learn from you. Waiting (v22) is not weakness, however unproductive it appears. This is not a show of impotence but true strength and might in God as you depend on him to work in you and through you. This is the suppression of a coiled spring which will one day be released and show its true uncontainable power, the longer it waits the greater the effect.
We pray that you will be conscious of his help and protection nanosecond by microsecond. We pray that in the terror and sorrow, your hearts might still rejoice in him, and when you can't trust a word an invader or despot speaks, your hearts will grow in trust of him who has only ever been, and will forever be holy and true. We rejoice that your hope is in one who will never, ever, let any of us down, and together with you we put our hope, invest our futures and place our eternal joy and security in the hands of him who will have the last and eternally resonating word.
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