QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“It takes courage to love, but pain through love is the purifying fire which those who love generously know. We all know people who are so much afraid of pain that they shut themselves up like clams in a shell and, giving out nothing, receive nothing and therefore shrink until life is a mere living death.”

~Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962), diplomat, activist, and longest-serving U.S. first lady

“The condition of the Psalmist’s mind was complex—he feared, but that fear did not fill the whole area of his mind.... It is possible, then, for fear and faith to occupy the mind at the same moment. We are strange beings, and our experience in the divine life is stranger still. We are often in a twilight, where light and darkness are both present and it is hard to tell which predominates. It is a blessed fear which drives us to trust. Unregenerate fear drives from God, gracious fear drives to him.”

~Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892), famed London pastor

“The Psalter is the prayer book of Jesus Christ in the truest sense of the word. He prayed the Psalter and now it has become his prayer for all time.”

~Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), theologian-pastor, executed for his opposition to the Nazis

Question 1: What is the chief end of man?

Answer: Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.

Question 2: What rule has God given to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy him?

Answer: The Word of God, which is contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, is the only rule to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy him.

Question 3: What do the Scriptures principally teach?

Answer: The Scriptures principally teach, what man is to believe concerning God, and what duty God requires of man.

~Westminster Shorter Catechism (1647)

“Don’t bother to give God instructions; just report for duty.”

~Corrie ten Boom (1892-1983), Dutch survivor of a Nazi death camp

SERMON PASSAGE

Psalm 56 (ESV)

To the choirmaster: according to The Dove on Far-off Terebinths.

A Miktam of David, when the Philistines seized him in Gath.

1 Be gracious to me, O God, for man tramples on me;

all day long an attacker oppresses me;

2 my enemies trample on me all day long,

for many attack me proudly.

3 When I am afraid,

I put my trust in you.

4 In God, whose word I praise,

in God I trust; I shall not be afraid.

What can flesh do to me?

5 All day long they injure my cause;

all their thoughts are against me for evil.

6 They stir up strife, they lurk;

they watch my steps,

as they have waited for my life.

7 For their crime will they escape?

In wrath cast down the peoples, O God!

8 You have kept count of my tossings;

put my tears in your bottle.

Are they not in your book?

9 Then my enemies will turn back

in the day when I call.

This I know, that God is for me.

10 In God, whose word I praise,

in the Lord, whose word I praise,

11 in God I trust; I shall not be afraid.

What can man do to me?

12 I must perform my vows to you, O God;

I will render thank offerings to you.

13 For you have delivered my soul from death,

yes, my feet from falling,

that I may walk before God

in the light of life.