“And everyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be saved; for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be deliverance, as the LORD has said, even among the survivors whom the LORD calls.” (Joel 2:32, NIV)
Feeling elated? Emotionally hungover? Worried about what’s next? Two days ago, we explored questions like these on the eve of the presidential election. Now we find ourselves on the other side, and while the questions aren’t exactly the same, they hover over us like clouds that threaten to wipe out our round of golf when we’re farthest from the clubhouse. It’s hard to know what’s coming, even if we appear to be winning.
Charles Spurgeon, the 19th Century British preacher whose life was itself clouded by physical and mental maladies that took him from the pulpit for months at a time, understood times like ours. But Spurgeon clung to the greatest hope:
When day turns to night, and life becomes death, and the staff of life is broken, and the hope of man has fled, there still remains God, in the person of his dear Son, deliverance for all who call upon the name of the Lord. We do not know what is to happen: reading the roll of the future, we prophesy dark things; but still this light shall always shine between the rifts of the cloud-wrack: “Whosoever shall call on the name of the LORD shall be delivered.”
They turn to friends and family, to therapists and even clergy. But do they turn to the Lord?The Scottish contemporary of Spurgeon, legendary golfer Old Tom Morris, a pious man in his own right, would have found refuge in the preacher’s words. Old Tom knew not only the storm clouds of a Scottish deluge but the sorrows of personal loss; he outlived his wife and all of his children.
You’ll often hear it wondered how a person can endure personal tragedy without the comfort of Christ. On whom do grieving people call if not on the Lord?
We don’t have to think hard for the answers. They turn to friends and family, to therapists and even clergy. But do they turn to the Lord? Do they turn to the one who can truly deliver?
Humble people look for help. I think of the golfer laboring unsuccessfully on the practice range, who calls the professional over for a quick peek. “Do you see anything?” the golfer asks, hoping for a small measure of deliverance.
Yet may our cries to the Lord be far more than that! The keeper of all his promises has given us a great one here: “Call on me; I will deliver.” We can appeal to his person and to his promise. “You may call upon idols, but these will not hear you,” Spurgeon preached. “You may not call upon men, for they are all sinners like yourselves…. You must make a direct address to God, an appeal to the Most High to help you in your time of need.”
You may deem today as a day of such need—for reasons apparent to all or reasons unknown to no one but you. It’s all the same. The problem is incidental, whatever it is, but the prayer is vital. Lift up that prayer to God today. Ask for his deliverance.
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Jeff Hopper
November 4, 2020
Copyright 2020 Links Players International
The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.
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