****A MIGHTY FORTRESS IS OUR GOD (2)

A MIGHTY FORTRESS IS OUR GOD

At the age of 21, during a severe thunderstorm, a bolt of lightning struck the ground within a few feet of Martin Luther. In fear he cried out, “Help me Ste, Anne; I will become a monk!”

Soon after that, he gave away everything he owned and entered a monastery. As a monk, he devoted himself to long hours of prayer, fasting, and other ascetic practices. He deprived himself of sleep and he refused a blanket for the cold nights. And he often beat his body.

He thought he had to do all those things to find favor with God and to know His love. But he never found rest. He became increasingly terrified of God’s wrath and eternal punishment.

During his studies in the scriptures, he was disturbed by the word “righteous” in Rom. 1:17. He rightly understood that, according to the text, only people who were already made righteous could live by faith. The text was clear; "the JUST shall live by faith."

In his own words, Luther remarked, "I hated that word, 'the RIGHTEOUSNESS of God,' by which I had been taught according to the custom and use of all (my) teachers ... [that] God is righteous and (He) punishes the unrighteous sinner." 

He reasoned that he could not live by faith because he was not righteous.

Later in life, in a testimony similar to that of the Apostle Paul, he remarked that "If anyone could have earned heaven by living the disciplined and sacrificial life of a monk, it was I."

While he was lecturing a series of studies in Romans, the the Word of God pierced his heart and God saved him. He wrote, "At last, meditating day and night, by the mercy of God I ... began to understand that the righteousness of God, through which the righteous (shall) live, is a gift of God (acquired) by faith (alone)… Here I felt as if I were entirely born again and had entered paradise itself through the gates that had been flung open."

Luther realized, then, that Roman Catholicism was contrary to biblical Christianity. His studies in Scripture revealed that salvation doesn’t come by the sacraments, but by faith. The idea that all human beings have a spark of goodness sufficient to seek God, was not a foundation of biblical theology but was taught only by "fools." Humility was not a virtue that earns grace but a necessary response to the gift of grace.

Luther’s faith no longer consisted of accepting and trusting the church's teachings but of trusting the promises of God and the merits of Christ.

Those revelations were the beginning of the Protestant Reformation that started over 500 years ago and spread throughout all of Europe and abroad to America.

Martin Luther wrote the hymn, A MIGHTY FORTRESS IS OUR GOD, which has been called the Battle Hymn of the Reformation.

Here is an old video recording of Steve Green's acapella rendition of this hymn.  Years ago, I heard him sing this live.  It is one of my favorites.

****STANDING ON THE PROMISES

In high school, I became aware of a couple whose daughter was terminally ill.  When her death was imminent, they began to pray, fervently, to God; “You have promised to heal all our diseases!  You have said, ‘Whatever we ask in faith, believing, you will do it!”  And then it got really scary; their prayers became angry and demanding.  They commanded God to keep her alive.

Their prayers must have worked because God granted their petitions; the girl lived for several more years, but she never recovered from her illness.  She remained bedridden and required constant care and she was often comatose. 

  

There are at least two lessons to learn from that incident:

1. Don’t make demands or attempt to manipulate God.  Contrary to the errant lyrics of another song about God’s promises, Every Promise In The Book Is NOT Mine.  God has made many promises that were specific and unique to certain people at certain times and we are not to presume that, just because those are recorded, He must grant us the same promises.                                                                                                        
2. Standing on God’s promises is not a physical thing.  It’s not about a comfortable best life now.  It is a peaceful assurance that comes when we rest in the finished work of Christ on the cross.  And it is a determined act of trusting the certain and immutable truths and principles of God’s Word. 

God saved Russell Carter in a prayer meeting at a military academy he attended in the late 1800s.  He was a star athlete and a top student.

After graduating, he returned to become an instructor and athletics coach in the academy.

He joined a Methodist church and later became an ordained minister.

He spent the last years of his professional life as a medical doctor. 

And through all those diverse occupations, he had time to become a musician and a songwriter.  

In 1886, he produced a hymnbook in which he published his hymn, STANDING ON THE PROMISES.

Russell Carter was just 30 years old when he was diagnosed with a critical heart condition and faced imminent death.  That condition humbled him; “He made a promise (to God) that, healing or no, his life was finally and forever, consecrated to the service of his Lord.

From that time on, he learned to lean on the promises he found in God’s Word.  He committed himself to trust his Savior whether or not he was healed.  In the end, he concluded that his life or death was God’s prerogative.

 

As it turned out, God granted Carter another 49 years.   His hymn was a personal testimony to his faith. 

The biblical inspiration, for the song, might have been Peter’s opening salutation in his second epistle – he wrote specifically,

“To those who have obtained like precious faith with us by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ:

Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, ...His divine power has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises...”

The hymn is simple yet profound.  After an opening stanza of praise to God, verse two reminds us that His promises cannot fail and that those, whose trust is in the Living Word (Jesus), will prevail.

Verse three assures us that we can overcome our spiritual battles every day because the Spirit of God indwells us and has provided us with the sword of protection which is the Word of God.

The last verse encourages us to be constantly listening to the Spirit of God as He applies the written Word of God to our hearts.

 

And that is how we can Stand firmly on the Promises of God.  

****WONDERFUL PEACE

In his early adult years, he was a teacher in an all-black school in the Dallas public school district.  Later he was ordained and spent about 25 years pastoring several churches.

But the threat of destructive cultural movements led him in other directions.

In the secular world, he became an activist in the political and social issues of the times.  For a while, he served as an officer in a powerful labor union and he led an “Anti-Tramp Movement” (not to be confused with the anti-TRUMP movement).  He was focused on the unlawful activities and social problems in the vagrant community.

But that wasn’t the full extent of his activism. Progressive populism had crept into our nation’s politics. Left-leaning people were electing Socialist Party members to Congress.  So, he formed The Anti-Socialist Constitutional Defense League and spent much of his time in the struggle to preserve our republican form of government.

In short, people were gripped with fear; it seemed like America was on the verge of an all-out war on our values and culture.

 

That was over one hundred years ago but it sounds like current events. We are living in tumultuous times where wrong is now considered right and evil is good.  And, regardless which side you are on, millions of people are fearful of the future.

Solomon wrote, “I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind.” (Ec.1:14)

With all his wealth and power, he looked back on his life and repeated, “I hated life because what is done under the sun was grievous to me, for all is vanity and a striving after wind.” (Ec. 2:17)

Today, fear is gripping multitudes of people who are worried about our rights, our livelihoods, our freedoms, and our economy.  But, as Christians, we can have peace in the midst of chaos and danger.

Biblical peace is not an absence of worldly conflicts or struggles.   It is a fruit of the Spirit; it comes from God.   Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you.  My peace I give to you. NOT as the world gives do I give to you.  Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid” (Jn. 14:27).

And a little later he said, “...in Me, you may have peace.  In the world, you WILL have tribulation” (Jn. 16:33).

     

Peace comes from knowing that God is not asleep; He is in control of all things and He works all things for our good and His glory.  Someone once reminded us that God is not much interested in our happiness; He is more concerned with our holiness.

 

That’s the kind of peace Warren Cornell wrote about in his hymn.

The soul, that trusts in God, is a soul at peace with God.  And that peace is WONDERFUL PEACE.

(Here is a very nice rendition of the hymn as sung by Bill Gaither and Friends Homecoming Reunion)

**** A TRIBUTE TO THE MUSIC AND FAITH OF THOMAS CHISHOLM

(A Tribute to the music and faith of Thomas Chisholm)

Thomas Obadiah Chisholm was a poor, simple man.

He was born in a log cabin in Kentucky in 1866 and educated in a little, one-room country schoolhouse where, at the age of 16, he became the teacher.

At the age of 36 years, with no formal college education or seminary training, he was ordained as a Methodist pastor but had to resign after only one year because of his fragile health.

There were many, extended periods of time when he was confined to his bed but, whenever he was able, he pushed himself to work extra long hours at various odd jobs just to make ends meet.

About his meager and difficult life, Thomas Chisholm said, “God has given me many wonderful displays of His providing care which have filled me with astonishing gratefulness.”

Thomas loved to write and during his lifetime, he wrote hundreds of poems and songs. One of them was inspired by Lamentations 3:22-23, “It is of the LORD’S mercies that we are not consumed because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning:  GREAT IS THY FAITHFULNESS.”

In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul, the apostle, said, “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children; and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma” (Eph. 5:1-2).

That was the inspiration for Thomas Chisholm’s hymn, O TO BE LIKE THEE. He also wrote another hymn with a similar theme; I WANT TO BE LIKE JESUS.

The apostle, Paul, wrote to the church at Corinth, that they (and we) should desire “...that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body” (2 Cor. 4:10).

And to the church in Galatia, he said, “the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” (2:20)

He encouraged the Colossian church to “...walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.” (Col. 1:10)

Thomas Chisholm must have had those verses, and probably many others, in mind when he wrote LIVING FOR JESUS, which is a call to live, willingly and joyfully, in submission and obedience to the Lord.