Remembering the Face of the Lord When Our Vision is Dim

REFLECTION QUOTES

“What matters first of all if you are a Christian is not what you once were, but what you are.”

~Martin Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981), Welsh-born clergyman

“If God had perceived that our greatest need was economic, he would have sent an economist. If he had perceived that our greatest need was entertainment he would have sent us a comedian or an artist. If God had perceived that our greatest need was political stability, he would have sent us a politician. If he had perceived that our greatest need was health, he would have sent us a doctor. But he perceived that our greatest need involved our sin, our alienation from him, our profound rebellion our death; and he sent us a Savior.”

~ D.A. Carson, contemporary Christian scholar

“God’s purpose in giving us any knowledge of Himself is that we may glorify Him as God. That is, that we love Him, serve Him, believe and obey Him, and give Him all the honour and glory that is due from such poor sinful creatures to a sin-pardoning God and Creator.”

~ John Owen (1616-1683)

“Prayer is a pouring out of the heart or soul. There is in prayer an unbosoming of a man’s self, an opening of the heart to God, an affectionate pouring out of the soul in request, sighs, and groans.”

~John Bunyan (1628-1688), famed author of Pilgrim’s Progress

SERMON PASSAGE

Psalm 42 (ESV)
1As a deer pants for flowing streams,
so pants my soul for you, O God.
2 My soul thirsts for God,
for the living God.
When shall I come and appear before God?
3 My tears have been my food
day and night,
while they say to me all the day long,
“Where is your God?”
4 These things I remember,
as I pour out my soul:
how I would go with the throng
and lead them in procession to the house of God with glad shouts and songs of praise,
a multitude keeping festival.

5 Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my salvation 6 and my God.

My soul is cast down within me;
therefore I remember you
from the land of Jordan and of Hermon,
from Mount Mizar.
7 Deep calls to deep
at the roar of your waterfalls;
all your breakers and your waves
have gone over me.
8 By day the Lord commands his steadfast love,
and at night his song is with me,
a prayer to the God of my life.
9 I say to God, my rock:
“Why have you forgotten me?
Why do I go mourning
because of the oppression of the enemy?”
10 As with a deadly wound in my bones,
my adversaries taunt me,
while they say to me all the day long,
“Where is your God?”

11 Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my salvation and my God.