08282021 No Deliverance

Dear Missionary Lady,

Greetings in the name of the Great Deliverer. How many times has God delivered His people from “impossible” situations?

Nebuchadnezzar thought he had created one of those impossible situations. After Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego had defied his order to worship the golden image, Nebuchadnezzar gave an ultimatum. He gave them one last chance to do what he had commanded, and if they failed to obey this time, his position was clear. “But if ye worship not, ye shall be cast the same hour into the midst of a burning fiery furnace; and who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands?” (Daniel 3:15).

Who is that God? Nebuchadnezzar thought there was no answer. He did not believe that any God could deliver these men from such a fierce punishment. As confident as Nebuchadnezzar was in his inescapable threat, he actually increased the severity of the situation after the three men still boldly refused to worship the idol. Nebuchadnezzar was so angry that he increased the heat of the fire seven times hotter. He did not ask the question again, but he could have, “Who is that God?”

Who is that God? Nebuchadnezzar ended up surprised. Instead of bursting into flame like human candles, the three men walked about in the fire. Nebuchadnezzar cried out in astonishment, “Lo, I see four men loose, and walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God” (Daniel 3:25).

Who is that God? The Most High God had prevented any harm from coming to His three obedient servants. Not only did they not die in the flame, but the fire had no effect on them at all. Their hair was not singed, their clothing was not damaged, and they did not even smell like smoke.

Who is that God? Nebuchadnezzar changed his tune. He admitted, “There is no other God that can deliver after this sort” (Daniel 3:29). Nebuchadnezzar then learned even more about this God. The next chapter opens with a later speech that reveals increased revelation. “I thought it good to shew the signs and wonders that the high God hath wrought toward me. How great are his signs! And how mighty are his wonders! His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and his dominion is from generation to generation” (Daniel 4:2-3).

Who is that God? Still the same today. He is still the God who watches over His children in their time of trial. He is still the God who is completely able to deliver. So what is it? Cancer? Other health issues? Family problems? Upset plans? Impossible travel? The unending challenges of COVID? The loss of coworkers or church members? Economic collapse? Animosity from those you desire to reach? Government harassment? No matter what the enemy is, God is able to deliver. He can give you all the grace and strength you need. He will walk down the path with you until the very end, and then He will receive you to eternal glory with Him.

Who is that God? My God! And your God! The God of the impossible! May you rest in His care today.

Love in Christ,

Peggy Holt

member at Open Door Baptist Church in Lebanon, PA

08212021 From Bad to Worse

Dear Missionary Lady,

Greetings in the name of the One who works all things for good. In the life that we live on this fallen earth, what a blessed consolation that is.

As I was praying for a friend last night, I was considering how many challenges have entered her life recently. It has been one thing after another. Significant challenges still loom on the horizon, and more changes are potentially possible. Perhaps one way to express the situation is to say that when it seems like things can't possibly get any worse, they do.

This is not the only such situation that I know of. I was just reading about the country of Lebanon, where the economy has absolutely collapsed. Electricity and gasoline are very difficult to come by, and the article stated that 80% of the population has been plunged into poverty. This country has been in a difficult setting for some time, and it seems to be getting increasingly worse.

Then there is Afghanistan, which is much in the news lately. There are Christians there. There are pastors and missionaries, who have always served and followed God at great risk to themselves. Now with the rapid overrun of the Taliban, their situation has become much more critical and potentially deadly.

Other bad-to-worse situations are taking place around the world. Myanmar, still greatly oppressed by the recent coup, has faced terrible devastation from COVID. I have heard from numerous Christian sources that healthcare and even basic supplies are scarce, leaving people vulnerable and resulting in many deaths, including of multiple pastors and Christian leaders. Other countries are facing similar rampages of the disease and discouraging third and fourth waves and resulting lockdowns.

So what do we do when it can't possibly get any worse but it does anyway? How do we evaluate that? How do we keep going?

I thought of Joseph. He had lost basically everything. As a young man, he was separated from his family with no reasonable expectation of being reconciled, and this separation lasted decades. When it couldn't get any worse, he was falsely accused and demoted from slavery to prison. I thought of Abraham. He had given up everything to follow God. He had left his family and his homeland and wandered as a pilgrim in an unknown land. After years of agonizing waiting, it got worse. He was asked to sacrifice his only son. There was Job, who faced incomprehensible tragedies in a single day, wiping out his wealth, his livelihood, and his children. Then it got worse when his health was viciously attacked.

I think there is great similarity in these three stories from the Bible and in the story of my friend and in the story of many others throughout history. It is as if God is shaking them upside down until everything falls out. Or it is as if one after another God is taking away comforts and resources and everything that has been depended upon, until all that remains is naked trust and unshakable resolve to follow God anyway.

Then I thought of a more biblical picture. It is as if God is heating the fire hotter and hotter. He is creating temperatures that burn away all dross and impurity until all that is left is highly refined and absolutely pure gold. “For thou, O God, hast proved us: thou hast tried us, as silver is tried” (Psalm 66:10). “And I will turn my hand upon thee, and purely purge away thy dross, and take away all thy tin” (Isaiah 1:25).

How did the biblical characters mentioned above endure and process such intense refinement? They clung to God's truth at whatever level it had been revealed to them. Joseph had dreams as a young man, and even his brothers correctly and immediately interpreted those dreams as meaning that they would someday bow down to him. This required a reconciliation at some point. God had promised a mighty seed to Abraham through Isaac. This required that Isaac live. Abraham believed that God would raise his son back from the dead if necessary to keep His word. Job expressed his unshakable resolve and naked trust in God when he said, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.” Moreover, Job saw God’s picture and expressed it in these words: “When he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold.”

In our own challenges and tragedies, it would seem that these are also the correct responses. We must first cling to God's truth. We must remember His promises. Every one of them is still true. He really will not leave us nor forsake us. He really will work all things for His good pleasure. He really will give us all the grace that we need. Unlike some of these biblical characters and their limited knowledge, our Bibles are complete and are filled with reassuring truth.

Our second response has to be that naked trust in God when everything else has been taken away. When we do not understand or see any possible reason, we must maintain that one thing - an unshakable resolve to follow God anyway. If God shakes out, takes away, or burns off every other thing, what must be left is continued devotion and determination to follow God. Even if it costs us everything, and even if it leads to death, there is no other path to follow. Meanwhile, while we do not see it happening, God is refining. God sees something through His work in us that is shining each day more brightly, that is glowing each day more purely, that is approaching that unflawed level that will resplendently reflect His face in us.

What about while we are in the fire? We do not walk through that fire alone. “When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee” (Isaiah 43:2). God is with us in the fire, and He can keep it from harming us and can control it incredibly so that it does only what He wants it to do and no more. Remember Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego? God walked in the fire with them. God incredibly controlled that fire for His purposes. God allowed that scorching fire to kill the men who threw the three friends into the fire, and God allowed that blazing fire to burn off the ropes that bound the three men, but that same fire did not burn their clothing or singe their hair. God's fire is so precise that we can be confident it will accomplish His purposes and nothing more. “That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ” (I Peter 1:7).

May God give each of us the grace and trust to walk faithfully through whatever He ordains for us. May He enable us not to resist, but to humbly submit to His hand so that His precise refining work is optimally effective. God bless you, my sisters.

Love in Christ,

Peggy Holt

member at Open Door Baptist Church in Lebanon, PA

081421 Not My Home

Dear Missionary Lady,

Greetings in the name of the God of the entire world. What a wonderful thing that is! If God’s love and redemption had been limited only to the part of the world where human life and God’s interactions with man initiated, probably all of us would be left out. But we are included! Along with all the needy people that each of you are trying to reach in places all around the globe.

About twenty years ago, I started thinking about writing books. Not the devotional and Biblical type of writing that I have since pursued, but Christian fiction. I put a fair amount of thought into it. I planned a series called “Quiver,” about a couple and their five children. I had a basic plan for each of the books and developed a lot of structure in terms of what the characters were like and where they were going to end up. I started on book one, and I finished 36 pages – typed, single-spaced. Then life happened – school, ministry, health, etc. I never went back to that writing, and I doubt that I ever will.

In that draft the best friends of the couple ended up going to the mission field. I named this missionary couple Eugene and Alice Homan in a subtle tribute to missionary friends of mine, the wife of which is receiving this letter. When Gene and Alice told the book’s main characters of their call to the mission field, this is what they said.

"The Lord has been working in our hearts for several months now, but we weren't sure exactly what it was He was trying to show us until Sunday night. After that message, Alice and I both knew. Pastor talked about Abraham's faith and how he followed God, and then he brought out that verse in Hebrews about looking for a city whose builder is God. This world is not our home. Abraham went wherever God led him because he was looking forward to something eternal. Sometimes we get tied down to this one little spot in the middle of Pennsylvania and think that it's the only place that God can use us, that it's the only place that we can be, just because we happened to be born here. I think we are prone to forget about the people in the rest of the world. What I'm trying to say is that this world is not our home; we're just passing through here on our way to heaven. So, if this world is not even my home, then does it make any difference what part of it I live on? We have decided that we don't want to be so tied to any one part of this world that we won't go elsewhere for God. And we firmly believe that he has called us to go elsewhere."

The verses referred to about Abraham are found in Hebrews 11:8-10. “By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: for he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.” The passage goes on to state that the patriarchs “confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth” (v. 13).

The corresponding hymn contains these words.

“This world is not my home, I'm just a-passing through.

My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue;

The angels beckon me from heaven's open door,

And I can't feel at home in this world anymore.

O Lord, you know I have no friend like you,

If heaven's not my home, then Lord what will I do?

The angels beckon me from heaven's open door,

And I can't feel at home in this world anymore.

 

I have a loving Savior up in glory-land,

I don't expect to stop until I with Him stand,

He's waiting now for me in heaven's open door,

And I can't feel at home in this world anymore.”

The character in my book asked, “So, if this world is not even my home, then does it make any difference what part of it I live on?” Those words are somewhat easy to say in a moment of spiritual strength and illumination. Practically, they can be more difficult to live out than we would want to admit. That’s where the truth of Hebrews serves as an anchor and an on-going motivation and encouragement. God’s Word reminds us that our life in this world is indeed temporary. Heaven, our true home, does await. So just a few more days on this earth, serving our wonderful God however and wherever He asks. That’s not too much, is it?

In the meanwhile, may God give you every bit of grace and wisdom and strength that you need to continue through the challenges and inconveniences of this life. It will indeed be worth it all when we reach our final home.

Love in Christ,

Peggy Holt

member at Open Door Baptist Church in Lebanon, PA

08072021 The Rock

Dear Missionary Lady,

Greetings in the name of God our Rock. I’ve been thinking a lot this week about the Rock. Several verses about the Rock have caught my attention over the past months, and then on Sunday, we sang “Hiding in Thee.”

O safe to the Rock that is higher than I,

My soul in its conflicts and sorrows would fly;

So sinful, so weary, Thine, Thine, would I be;

Thou blest Rock of Ages, I’m hiding in Thee.

Hiding in Thee, hiding in Thee,

Thou blest Rock of Ages, I’m hiding in Thee.

How oft in the conflict, when pressed by the foe,

I have fled to my refuge and breathed out my woe;

How often, when trials like sea billows roll,

Have I hidden in Thee, O Thou Rock of my soul.

 

The hymn is taken from Psalm 61:2, a verse that has been precious to me for decades. “From the end of the earth will I cry unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the rock that is higher than I.” How aptly the hymn describes me as conflicted, sorrowful, and weary. I need a strong Rock. And the words of the last stanza are true - “how often.” Yes, over and over again I have come to this Rock for refuge, and He is always there and always strong.

I am not unique. David, who wrote the above verse, often referred to God as his Rock. “The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; The God of my rock; in him will I trust: he is my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower, and my refuge.” “For who is God, save the LORD? and who is a rock, save our God?” “The LORD liveth; and blessed be my rock; and exalted be the God of the rock of my salvation” (II Samuel 22:2,3,32,47, repeated in Psalm 18:2,31,46). “Unto thee will I cry, O LORD my rock; be not silent to me: lest, if thou be silent to me, I become like them that go down into the pit” (Psalm 28:1). “Bow down thine ear to me; deliver me speedily: be thou my strong rock, for an house of defence to save me. For thou art my rock and my fortress; therefore for thy name’s sake lead me, and guide me” (Psalm 31:2,3). “He only is my rock and my salvation; he is my defence; I shall not be greatly moved.” “In God is my salvation and my glory: the rock of my strength, and my refuge, is in God” (Psalm 62:2,7).

David uttered these words of dependence and desperation and confidence all throughout his life, and he found God to be always faithful. Do you know what David’s last words were? When he came to the end of his life, with the perspective of looking back over it all, his estimation did not change. On his deathbed he said, “The God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spake to me, He that ruleth over men must be just” (II Samuel 23:3).

David wasn’t the only one. Moses wrote a song in which he referred to God as a Rock five times, including this verse: “He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he” (Deuteronomy 32:4). His influence carried over to the nation of Israel, as recorded by Asaph: “And they remembered that God was their rock, and the high God their redeemer” (Psalm 78:35).

After Hannah experienced God’s work on her behalf, she declared, “There is none holy as the LORD: for there is none beside thee: neither is there any rock like our God” (I Samuel 2:2). An unnamed old man also reflected back and saw the Rock: “Be thou my strong habitation, whereunto I may continually resort: thou hast given commandment to save me; for thou art my rock and my fortress” (Psalm 71:3).

Three additional unidentified psalmists saw God as a rock. “To shew that the LORD is upright: he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him” (Psalm 92:15). “But the LORD is my defence; and my God is the rock of my refuge” (Psalm 94:22). “O come, let us sing for unto the LORD: let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation” (Psalm 95:1).

Other psalmists joined the familiar theme. The sons of Korah wrote, “I will say unto God my rock, Why hast thou forgotten me? why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?” (Psalm 42:9). Ethan the Ezrahite wrote, “He shall cry unto me, Thou art my father, my God, and the rock of my salvation” (Psalm 89:26).

The Rock continued into the time of the prophets. Isaiah knew God as the Rock. “Because thou hast forgotten the God of thy salvation, and hast not been mindful of the rock of thy strength” (Isaiah 17:10).

Finally, in the New Testament, Paul continues the same theme. “And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that rock was Christ” (I Corinthians 10:4).

Clearly, the Rock is a great description of God. What does it mean? There are two Hebrew words. The more commonly used word refers to a cliff, sharp rock, or boulder. Figuratively, it is a refuge. The second word refers to something lofty, a craggy rock, figuratively, a fortress. The Rock is imposing, high, harsh toward attackers. It is difficult for attackers to access, but it hides those inside in safety. They can take refuge in this impenetrable, unscalable fortress.

Is God the Rock of Ages? Absolutely. For Moses and Paul, and many people in-between, and everyone before and since, God is the Rock. He is still a refuge. He is still a fortress. God hasn’t changed, and He won’t change. Our challenge is to do what David did and the unnamed old man – to remember. Several of the verses speak with caution about forgetting the Rock. Only when we forget are we in danger. When we remember how great our Rock is, we will be encouraged and strengthened. Truly, on Christ the solid Rock I stand.

May you find Him to be your strong refuge and your secure fortress this week. Remember the Rock!

Love in Christ,

Peggy Holt

member at Open Door Baptist Church in Lebanon, PA