Redeeming a Nation (Timeless Teaching)

by Philip Quenby

  • “It is futile to serve God” (Malachi 3:14). To ascribe futility to service of the very person who gives meaning to all life and to every human endeavour, who is indeed the source of life itself, shows a pitiful grasp of reality. It demonstrates a confusion of truth and falsehood that is a particular bane of our present condition. Life is futile without God. With him there is purpose, fulfilment and meaning. To say otherwise turns everything upside down and inside out.

  • “[We gained nothing] by carrying out [God’s] requirements and going about like mourners before the LORD Almighty” (Malachi 3:14). Here several misconceptions are rolled into one: that serving God is about our material gain, that proper service of God requires our “going about like mourners” and that carrying out God’s requirements brings no benefit. The truth is that serving God brings blessing, that material gain and godliness do not necessarily go hand in hand and that we should “consider it pure joy whenever [we] face trials of many kinds.” (James 1:2).

  • “[Now] we call the arrogant blessed” (Malachi 3:15). Inversion of truth and falsehood, coupled with perversion of proper values and rewarding of those who do not deserve it, typifies much of the moral corrosion of this nation in the post-war period. We need to turn things back the right way round.

  • “Certainly the evildoers prosper” (Malachi 3:15). A sense of helplessness in the face of evil is the very last thing that we should feel. The Lord has given us “divine power to demolish strongholds” (2 Corinthians 10:4).

  • “[Those] who challenge God escape” (Malachi 3:15). A delay in punishment is not the same as a lack of retribution. St Paul counsels: “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked.” (Galatians 6:7).

  God characterises each of these misconceptions as “harsh things” (Malachi 3:13) said against him. Through them, we find excuses for not honouring God, for not obeying his laws, for failing to confront evil and for permitting blasphemy. The slightest reflection will show these up for what they are: excuses, nothing more or less, devoid of intellectual coherence, lacking moral content, without any underpinning of empirical evidence – an abdication of free will in favour of apathy. Little wonder that the servant who takes his one talent and buries it in the ground is so roundly criticised and harshly punished: “You wicked, lazy servant! ... you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest ... throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Matthew 25:26-27 and 30).

  Conclusion.

  The fact that Britain pulled out of her downward spiral was not a foregone conclusion. In 1916 Argentina was the sixth biggest economy in the world. A prolonged period of misgovernment and civil strife turned her by the 1970s into the archetype of the Latin American banana republic and military dictatorship. There is nothing to say that the same could not have happened in Britain. The Lord placed his saving hand upon us and ensured that we “[were] not destroyed.” (Malachi 3:6). We should remember this with wonder and gratitude. “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.” (Hebrews 13:8). He is the one who says to his faithful ones, “I will never leave you or forsake you.” (Joshua 1:5). We are told that “the LORD will not reject his people, he will never forsake his inheritance.”(Psalm 94:14). At the same time, we are warned that “The LORD is with you when you are with him. If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you forsake him, he will forsake you.” (2 Chronicles 15:2).

  Once we were a people who aspired to serve God and our nation. Now it seems that we aspire only to serve ourselves. The cult of the self and of the individual that we thus embrace does not set us free, but enslaves us. In seeking to serve ourselves, we in fact serve false gods and are prey to all the degradation that results. Meanwhile, we turn our backs on the true God, who offers us genuine freedom and the manifold blessings of his love. Rather than rejecting our Lord, we should instead renounce what is wrong: “Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the LORD, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will freely pardon.” (Isaiah 55:7).

  To release the fullness of God’s blessing, we need to: “’Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,’ says the LORD Almighty, ‘and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it. I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not cast their fruit,’ says the LORD Almighty. ‘Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land,’ says the LORD Almighty.” (Malachi 3:10-12). God’s blessing awaits.

  58. Down to the sea

  2 Samuel 22:1-25.

  Key word: deliverance.

  Born in 1901, Sir Francis Chichester was both aviator and yachtsman. In 1929 he became only the second person to fly solo between England and Australia. Shortly afterwards he was the first to fly solo east to west across the Tasman Sea from New Zealand to Australia (a journey equal to three quarters of the crossing from England to the United States). In 1931 he made the world’s first solo long-distance seaplane flight from New Zealand to Japan, surviving a horrific crash shortly after alighting on the Japanese mainland. He devised new methods of aerial navigation, and during the Second World War was Chief Instructor at the Empire Central Flying School. After the war he started his own map publishing business.

  In the nineteen fifties this driven man sought a new challenge by taking up ocean racing, naming a succession of yachts ‘Gypsy Moth’ in memory of the biplane in which he had made many of his most famous flights. Despite being a latecomer to single-handed sailing, Chichester won his first solo transatlantic race in 1960, the first yacht race of any kind east to west across the Atlantic. It was a tremendous achievement for someone pushing sixty, the more so since not long before he had almost died of lung cancer. At the height of his sickness his weight fell to 40lbs. Medical experts were unanimous in saying that an operation on his lung was the only thing that could save him, his wife equally adamant that he was so weakened that this would kill him. Her view prevailed. After months when his life hung by a thread, he strengthened enough to move from a hospital bed.

  Still an invalid, he was unaccountably struck by a sudden desire to go to the south of France. In his autobiography he says simply: “It seemed an irresistible urge.” No sooner had he arrived in St Paul de Vence than he took a turn for the worse. Breathing was so difficult that a doctor was summoned. Chichester described what then transpired: “What I regarded as a miraculous chain of events had started in London when I felt the urge to go to the south of France. There I reached a doctor who had been considered one of the cleverest lung physicians in Paris before he settled in Vence; also I had fetched up in a town which had been considered a health resort, with a magic quality of air for lungs, since the time of the Romans. How did this come about?”

  He wrote of this time: “When I was at my worst, [my wife] rallied many people to pray for me, my friends and others ... I feel shy about my troubles being imposed on others, but the power of prayer is miraculous. Hardly anyone would doubt its power for evil – for example the way the Australian aborigines can will a member of their tribe to death; so why should its power for good be doubted? ... I regard it as miraculous that within thirty-two months of being first taken ill, and within fifteen months of my appealing to Dr. Mattei for oxygen in Vence, I was able to cross the starting line for the toughest yacht race that has ever taken place, and able to finish it in forty and a half days.”

  As a cancer case no less than as aviator and yachtsman, Chichester might have echoed the words that King David used to describe a time of trial and his deliverance from it: “The waves of death swirled about me; the torrents of destruction overwhelmed me. The cords of the grave coiled about me; the snares of death confronted me ... He [God] reached down from on high and took hold of me; he drew me out of deep waters.” (2 Samuel 22:5-6
and 17).

  Expectation.

  The Israelites were not a seafaring nation. For them, the sea was a place of such dread that it became a symbol of all that was spiritually dark, threatening and inconstant. Wickedness, doubt and ungodliness are all described in the Bible using images of the sea: “The wicked are like the tossing sea.” (Isaiah 57:20); “he ... who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind” (James 1:6); “They [the ungodly] are wild waves of the sea, foaming up their shame” (Jude :13). Correspondingly, the perfect re-creation brought about by God at the end of time is characterised by the absence of such things: “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.” (Revelation 21:1).

  This background gives added resonance to the maritime images used in the song of praise that “David sang to the LORD ... when the LORD delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul” (2 Samuel 22:1). The same song is also preserved, with some minor variations, as Psalm 18. God is depicted as:

  • A place of strength and safety: “The LORD is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation. He is my stronghold, my refuge and my saviour – from violent men you save me.” (2 Samuel 22:2-4).

  • One who hears and responds to prayer: “In my distress I called to the LORD; I called out to my God. From his temple he heard my voice; my cry came to his ears.” (2 Samuel 22:7).

  • Sovereign over all Creation: “The valleys of the sea were exposed and the foundations of the earth laid bare at the rebuke of the LORD, at the blast of breath from his nostrils.” (2 Samuel 22:16).

  • One who intervenes in his Creation and in human history: “He parted the heavens and came down; dark clouds were under his feet ... He reached down from on high and took hold of me; he drew me out of deep waters.” (2 Samuel 22:10 and 17).

  • A rescuer: “my deliverer ... my saviour ... He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me.” (2 Samuel 22:2, 3 and 20).

  • The repository of all power and majesty: “The earth trembled and quaked, the foundations of the heavens shook; they trembled because he was angry. Smoke rose from his nostrils; consuming fire came from his mouth, burning coals blazed out of it ... He mounted the cherubim and flew; he soared on the wings of the wind. He made darkness his canopy around him – the dark rain clouds of the sky. Out of the brightness of his presence bolts of lightning blazed forth.” (2 Samuel 22:8-9 and 11-13).

  David had every expectation that his Lord would intervene in the world around him. Despite what we claim to believe, too often we act as if there were no prospect of deliverance for us. We imagine that we have to struggle on alone, forgotten and overwhelmed by adverse circumstances. The truth is that God longs for the chance to help, and only awaits our invitation. Like David, we need to cry out to him: “I call to the LORD, who is worthy of praise, and I am saved from my enemies.” (2 Samuel 22:4).

  Confrontation.

  When things are beyond us (2 Samuel 22:18-19), the Almighty does the fighting for us: “He shot arrows and scattered the enemies, bolts of lightning and routed them.” (2 Samuel 22:15). Evil people and wretched circumstances may surround us. There is no promise to make them disappear in a puff of smoke, but they need not be things that define and constrain us. If we ask God to intervene, he will sustain us so that we can make our way to calmer waters: “They confronted me in the day of my disaster, but the LORD was my support ... He brought me out into a spacious place” (2 Samuel 22:19-20).

  We pay lip service to the idea of God as the Almighty but tend to tiptoe timidly through life as though this were merely a polite fiction. David had no such reservations. His song shows the Lord surrounded by the images and indicators of his presence and power:

  • Earthquake: “The earth trembled and quaked, the foundations of the heavens shook; they trembled” (2 Samuel 22:8);

  • Thunder: “The LORD thundered from heaven; the voice of the Most High resounded.” (2 Samuel 22:14);

  • Lightning: “bolts of lightning blazed forth ... He shot ... bolts of lightning” (2 Samuel 22:13 and 15).

  • Fire: “Smoke rose from his nostrils; consuming fire came from his mouth, burning coals blazed out of it.” (2 Samuel 22:9).

  • Glory: “Out of the brightness of his presence” (2 Samuel 22:13).

  When we experience these natural phenomena, we catch a glimpse of the might and magnificence of the one who made and commands them, whose reach extends across all the earth and whose power knows no limit: “The valleys of the sea were exposed and the foundations of the earth laid bare at the rebuke of the LORD, at the blast of breath from his nostrils.” (2 Samuel 22:16).[125] This is the one who confronts evil and all its works. He it is who saves and redeems, who delivers us from our enemies and even from death itself.

  In the log he kept during his single-handed race across the Atlantic in 1960, Chichester wrote, “I shall put my trust in the Almighty who I am convinced has it all arranged anyhow.” It was a sentiment that King David would have endorsed wholeheartedly.

  Navigation.

  Finding our way across land or sea requires that we have something to steer by and something to aim for, since otherwise we will wander aimlessly. The Lord is “the bright Morning Star” (Revelation 22:16) to guide us on the journey and to be its goal, but that is not to say that it will be beer and skittles all the way. Storms are to be expected and there will be moments when we are becalmed, for each human being comes across things that block the path ahead, which form shackles and traps or are the cause of anguish: “cords of the grave ... snares of death ...distress” (2 Samuel 22:6-7). Yet with God, these can be unravelled, disarmed and sidestepped so that we can make headway, freed from fear and restraint to experience life as he meant it to be lived: “He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me.” (2 Samuel 22:20).[126]

  To steer properly we need to keep a clear head. We need to keep our eyes skinned and our minds on the task in hand. Nobody can expect to come out right if their attention is forever wandering and their brain befuddled. The same holds true in spiritual matters just as much as in any map-reading exercise. David had this clarity of mind and purpose. He says: “The LORD has dealt with me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands he has rewarded me ... The LORD has rewarded me according to my righteousness, according to my cleanness in his sight.” (2 Samuel 22:21 and 25). This is not self-righteous boasting. Nor does it convey the idea that we can bargain with God or produce an automatic reaction from him in the same way that we might by putting a coin in a slot machine. Rather, it recognises that God rewards those who serve him and it expresses a desire to please God. This should be our motivation in all that we do.

  It is likewise a claim of moral integrity, not sinless perfection, when David says: “For I have kept the ways of the LORD; I have not done evil by turning from my God. All his laws are before me; I have not turned away from his decrees. I have been blameless before him and have kept myself from sin.” (2 Samuel 22:22-24). No human being is perfect. We all make mistakes. Yet if we stick sincerely to our course, deliverance will be ours. The important thing is to keep going and not to allow ourselves to be sidetracked. Sir Francis Drake, greatest of the Elizabethan sea dogs, made precisely this point in one of his prayers: “O Lord God, when thou givest to thy servants to endeavour any great matter, grant us also to know that it is not the beginning but the continuing of the same until it be thoroughly finished, which yieldeth the true glory; through him that for the finishing of thy work laid down his life, our Redeemer Jesus Christ. Amen.” We could do worse than to make this prayer our own.[127]

  Conclusion.

  Even after his transatlantic exploits, Chichester still was not finished. From 1966 to 1967 he sailed around the world single-handed in his boat Gypsy Moth IV. Like many men of action, he seems
to have been given more to doing rather than to reflection, but the power of wind and waves inevitably stirs thoughts of our own weakness and our corresponding need for deliverance. As the Psalmist said: “They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters; these see the works of the LORD, and his wonders in the deep.” (Psalm 107:23-24, KJV).

  Most of us are now so cosseted from nature that we have lost this daily reminder of our need. Often only the failing of our bodies brings it home to us. There is a message that our pleasure-seeking land desperately needs to hear: “Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say, ‘I find no pleasure in them’” (Ecclesiastes 12:1).

  59. Turning the tide

  2 Kings 6:8-23.

  Key word: insight.

  During the Falklands War of 1982[128] a battalion of the Parachute Regiment was striking across country to the capital Port Stanley when they met Argentine forces dug in at Goose Green. At once Colonel H. Jones ordered an attack. It was hard going. The British were outnumbered and fighting uphill across ground that gave little cover. When the assault bogged down, Colonel Jones grabbed a machine gun and charged the enemy lines. He was killed as he did so, and for his bravery was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross.